I can see where those involved probably thought this concept was funny as they were taking it from pitch, to script, to done deal. But when I watched the actual finished movie, I got the feeling that Gervais and Co. had a change of heart, realizing as they filmed one limp scene after another, that the concept is not actually all that funny (or at least the script isn't), but had to soldier on anyway. I mean, the whole crew is standing around, you have all this studio money to spend, you can't let a little thing like un-funny jokes stop you from making a comedy.
My wife Jenn and I didn't really genuinely laugh once throughout the whole thing. I tried valiantly a few times, pushing out air at stuff that I thought could be funny, even if it really wasn't. I wanted to laugh, being that I was watching a comedy, so therefore I decided to laugh despite the movie.
I am a fan of Gervais' TV stuff obviously, so it's not at that I don't find him funny, it's just with both his attempts at Hollywood crossovers (this and Ghost Town) he seems to be spending his comedy capital in the wrong place: high-concept territory. Fellow movie-addled junk hound, Swazz Perkins and I have argued many times over Ghost Town. Ghost Town arouses a surprisingly vitriolic hatred in Perkins, whereas I just think its mediocre and not as funny as you expect something to be with Ricky Gervais starring. I did laugh a few times and for some insane reason, I actually cried (in the scene where Gervais assuages a construction worker's crippling guilt over the deaths of his buddies). Despite my medium like of Ghost Town, I still think it was an odd fit for Gervais and was a bad idea for his first foray into American movies. The Office mined big laughs from a universal scenario-working everyday with people you don't particularly like. With Extras, Gervais set his sights a little higher, but essentially went back to the workplace again, albeit an atypical one-the movie set. So it seems odd that when he made the move to Hollywood films, he picked gimmicky projects that seemed intended for the likes of Eddie Murphy or Adam Sandler, ones with Sci-Comedy plots of ghosts and alternate social frameworks.
The Invention of Lying (exciting title, eh?) is about a parallel world where everybody tells the absolute truth and no one even knows what a lie is. Gervais' character is the first person to figure out how to tell a lie and he uses this discovery to become rich and famous, and yet is too principled to lie his way into the heart of Jennifer Garner. Watching the forced, stunned look of sweet innocence on Jennifer Garner's face throughout this movie reminded me of just how awful a job acting can be, even for someone who is a star and really shouldn't inspire pity in anyone. The jokes consist of everyone unblinkingly calling Gervais a fat loser. That's about it. Maybe the third time will be the charm for Ricky Gervais, I don't know.
You forgot about the joke where my new favorite actress, who's name I do not know, says "Oh no I just imagined that chocolate sauce was diarrhea." That one managed not to be about fat losers. Although, this brings me to one of my issues with the movie which was that I found it odd in a very in-your-face manner that all the 'fat losers' the movie was obseessed with were all a 70's level of fat. Not one even touched on the colossal, epidemic fatness of the modern era, which I suppose could be written off on this alternate universe not having this issue, but still does not wash with me. Dia-Realistically, Gervais is probably less fat than your average 40-something, and his character could hardly be considered a loser once we get about 40 minutes in, so I basically attribute this to Gervais' own obsession with joking about himself being fat and ugly, which in essence exists only as an attempt for him to balance out how super awesome he truly considers himself to be. Of course, I suppose without him wearing the 'fat loser' stamp they would have only had 35 pages and none of Jeniffer Garner's fully understandable eugenics hang up to work with in a storyline that barely existed in the first place.
ReplyDeleteAnd for the record, Ghost Town, AKA "The opposite of what to do when making a movie" fails on so many levels at the hands of the incompetent yet incredibly successful David Koepp that I indeed put The Invention of Lying above it on my growing list of shitty, unsuccessful and regrettable Ricky Gervais vehicles. Perhaps the difference is partially due to the fact that all my hope for The Invention of Lying had been drained from me before I got around to watching it, while in the case of Ghost Town I legitimately thought it had a chance despite it's ridiculously lame and already over done high concept and bad reviews, to rise above and for me to come out of it saying "No, those people just didn't get it, Gervais is still the man." Or perhaps it is because I watched it only in an attempt to cure insomnia, or perhaps it is simply because I personally want to impregnate Jeniffer Garner and/or Tina Fey and will possibly never get to do so, and thus his plight reached me on some level. Oh yeah the other thing is that when I watched this movie I was snorting HUGE lines of coke and yelling shit at my TV like "Yeah! Yeah that would be totally crazy if people talked like that!! Oh Man, that would be sooooo nuts! It would be totally just like this movie I'm watching right - now what are the odds!?!?"