Can someone explain the appeal of Ricky Gervais to us?
The “Invention of Lying” was a noxiously sentimental and a goofy Hallmark-card of loathsome cuteness and painful music montages (who is this composer desperately jacking the Jon Brion-sound? It moves from homage to straight rip-off). This over-simplistic moronic claptrap — no one can lie! they all blurt out the truth all the time! ha ha ha! — it so cloyingly egregious is almost forces me to drop the The Playlist “we” conceit because there’s probably some of our writers out there that might disagree with me, but fuck it.
We’ve never outwardly detested Ricky Gervais, but some of us (me) did think the original U.K. “The Office,” was overrated and his shtick, we’ve come to realize is rather obnoxious and completely one-note. Do people find that thing sort of cute? We also cannot properly review this film without coming across as an even bigger assholes, so we’re not going to bother, but this saccharine, largely unfunny, reductive atheist comedy/romantic fairytale was painfully hamfisted, insulting to the intelligence and nauseating. Even Jim Carrey’s “Liar, Liar,” wasn’t as insufferable. We just can’t fathom how people like movies like this. No, this isn’t a proper review. It’s all we can bear to stomach. [F]
This might be the worst review I've ever read on this site. It's quite obvious you went into this waiting to rip it to shreds.
This Ricky Gervasi guy sounds like a dick.
Say what you will. It's admittedly a tossed-off piece and not a proper review. But I actually went to see it cause I thought it would be good. You'll noticed we do ignore lots of other mainstream films and that's basically because we feel like we have no use for them and don't bother to rain down on them.
But believe what you will. I continue to not really care.
"Even Jim Carrey's Liar Liar wasn't as insufferable"
this isn't possible. Considering I've never seen anything written by Gervais that didn't make me laugh my ass off, this seems highly unlikely. Sounds like you have a personal vendetta or you just don't appreciate his brand of humor.
Why would i have a personal vendetta? He's never harmed my family.
It's must be b) don't appreciate his brand of humor. In fact, i'm sure it is, because it left me genuinely baffled.
This makes ppl laugh? Though i went on twitter and good movie folks like Quint at AICN (really the only person worth reading there) and Rope of silicon agreed with me. I'm sure others do too. It's RT and Metacritic scores are not at all high.
you really need to proofread before you hit that "submit" button. there were so many grammar errors in this review, and words that aren't even words, that i must ignore the entire thing and see the movie for myself, because this review did nothing to persuade or inform me. and how anyone could think the original BBC Office was over-rated is beyond me. one of the most influential shows of the past 20 years.
Have you given "Extras" a try?
I owe you an apology. I just saw it, and it was pretty bad. I can't believe that Gervais didn't hit it out of the park given the cast and the concept. Maybe the absence of his writing partner Stephen Merchant is to blame? Who knows?
I can recite lines from the UK Office. I giggle when I think about scenes from Extras. Paid the fucking Ticketmaster fees for his stand-up show in LA. And I think his appearances on both this year's and last year's Emmys were the only highlights of the shows. I would follow Ricky to hell if he made me laugh.
Saw Lying 2 weeks ago at a screening and I hated it. It's got awful pacing, dreadful dialogue, a stupid plot and it's lazily directed. You can actually tell when some throwaway lines were improvised because they are the only things that feel authentic. All I could think was "Stephen Merchant is the brains behind this operation" and is why I will give them another chance with their upcoming 70s period film.
The numerous celebrity cameos are odd, but those scenes individually are somewhat amusing. It's like Ricky had to rewrite those pages separately to get them to appear for no money.
@Anon, don't apologize to me, apologize to your missing $12. Don't say I didn't try to warn you. I'm not a unfair guy, it's just trash, that's all.
I also saw the movie expecting to like it, I didn't. It was virtually laugh-free, and the whole religion=lying thing was just grating and irritating.
As the writer of this movie, Gervais is a proselytizing atheist.