Religolo

As a documentary, Religulous is weak because it’s shallow, it covers a very small cross-section of reality and shows only stuff that fits its narrative. As a comedy, however, it’s effective; most of it is really great fun, especially the parts where Mahler mocks concrete stupid individuals. But when it takes on religion as such, it starts to grind, and not because his observations are lazy, but because when he says A, he should also say B, but that wouldn’t be convenient. But it still fun and “good”, up until the ending, where it slides into the same utterly simplistic verbal aggression (coming from an atheist) that they made fun of (when it came from religion). The moral, though, is still valid: it doesn’t matter if a person is an atheist or a believer, what’s important is their character, their heart and the degree of aggressiveness of their beliefs. Judging by most of the enthusiastic anti-clerical comments here, it seems that for most people it was enough to watch something that confirmed their views. PS: I’m an atheist. (08/05/2013)

I think if I had just stuck to the opening credits and not watched the other 95 minutes, I wouldn't have missed anything crucial at all. Religulous is a film quite similar to Super Size Me, in short, an unpleasantly one-sided film that, apart from the believers, also mocks (unintentionally) the filmmakers themselves. Of course, if Larry Charles and Bill Maher wanted to make themselves known above all by being brave enough to go digging into religion, they probably succeeded. Just like Morgan Spurlock did in the aforementioned hamburger documentary, who almost died while filming it. (28/04/2012)

A "documentary" after my own heart. Those who will take it too seriously are probably in for a few sleepless nights, gnashing their teeth while coming up with various names to call Bill Maher. Muslims are in for a few sleepless nights, gnashing their teeth while assembling an explosive device. As an atheist, I had a lot of fun, especially enjoying the "It's true because it says so in the Bible!" type of responses. The only thing that can compete with that is the phrase "It must be true because they said so in the newspaper." Since I've never been interested in the latest developments in the Catholic doctrine. I’m not sure if they have abandoned the idea of a flat Earth around which all other cosmic planes revolve yet, I just noticed that they no longer burn people at the stake for saying otherwise. Two of the priests who appeared in the film would really be worth having a chat with, the astronomer and the funny guy in Rome with progressive views. (07/07/2018)