Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tales

The Invention of Lying started out to be one of the best movies I've ever seen. The whole first hour of it, it was the sweetest, most charming story. A world where no human can lie, a man learns to; you'd think that would make for mean, bad actions by the character, but instead the guy changed lives for the better.

Then, by a chance action of the main character (lying, telling his dying mother that there's a wonderful afterlife instead of the eternity of nothing that everyone knows will happen), he starts religion. Not subtle at all, he writes the ten rules, and wants tablets to carry them out to the people on (ending up using Pizza Hut boxes...). He introduces the world to "the man in the sky", who controls all aspects of their life, who gets credit and blame for every action and happening.

There are still charming moments in the second half (a woman follows in his footsteps, not so far as to learn to lie, but able to see more in people than the "truth" of their appearance), but they're rare. Such a good movie, ruined by a need to send a Religion Is Bad message. (And you all should know me, I'm anything but pro-religion, I'm not personally offended by this. It's just that it's so heavy handed and unsubtle...) Such a let down...