Religulous   Starring: Bill Maher Momentum Pictures RRP: £17.99 MP806D Certificate: 15 Available 13 July 2009

Can we be good without God? Is religion a calling or a mental illness? When religion gets ridiculous "Religulous" is born. Bill Maher and director Larry Charles have a bone to pick with religion. What have talking snakes, immaculate conceptions and walking on water got to do with spiritual salvation? Maher’s pilgrimage for answers takes him from homeland America to Jerusalem, Egypt, London, Amsterdam and The Vatican. Along the way he talks to believers, non-believers, religious leaders, self professed messiahs, atheists, extremists, politicians, agnostics, academics and the average man on the street looking to lift the lid on their beliefs...

Religulous could have been a serious documentary in which the interviewer actually let his interviewees speak without interrupting so much, and in which the director didn't deliberately edited the finished footage so that almost every single participant looked like a stupid weirdo. However, thanks to the comedic rantings of interviewer Bill Maher under the director Larry Charles (Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan) we get exactly what we should expect - an amazingly funny documentary which only works because the film is cut together to prove the movie makers point - that religion is a load of hogwash and anyone who follows one is cuckoo crazy.

Maher travels the world interviewing representatives from different religions in his bid to find out why on earth people still believe such crazy fairy stories. And to be fair, he does come across a lot of people who take themselves, and their beliefs, way too seriously.

While an amusing and very entertaining mockumentary, under no circumstances can this be taken as a serious exploration of why people follow religious beliefs.

The only extra is the movie's trailer.

I'll probably go to Hell for enjoying this so much - but it'll be worth it.

9

Darren Rea