Religulous

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

He's a bombs-away provocateur, and in Religulous, Maher's blasphemous detonation of all things holy and scriptural, he doesn't really pretend to play fair. He's like Lenny Bruce with an inquiring mind and a video camera.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

You may very well hate it, but at least you've been informed. Perhaps you could enjoy the material about other religions, and tune out when yours is being discussed. That's only human nature.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The results are often as surprising as they are funny.

Empire Helen O'Hara

It's a rare film that can simultaneously crack you up and send a chill down your spine. Worth seeing -- even for believers.

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

What he does do finally in this funny, refreshing movie is assert how unrestrained religiosity could guarantee the "end days" many of his subjects admit to looking forward to.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Though fashioned as popular entertainment with laughs, light moments, and mostly humorous segments, Religulous is as serious as a disapproving Jehovah about its mission to upend our rote allegiance to blind religious faith.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Those with a taste for irreverent humor and clear-eyed analysis will find it funny, enlightening and disturbing.

New York Post Kyle Smith

Maher's sense of humor deserts him in the end, though, when in an apocalyptic montage of fire and hate (bin Laden, Pat Robertson), he suggests all religions are equally bent on destruction of the Earth. It's fatuous to suggest that the Iraq war was launched because of religion or that belief in the Book of Revelation is the same as organizing terrorist attacks.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Maher can be a smartass, but his attempts to apply reason to religion are more a challenge than a threat.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Stylistically, Religulous is very much like a Michael Moore documentary, in that most of the scenes have a comic structure, end with a punch line and are designed to make Maher-the-interviewer look sane and rational while his subject comes off as a complete fool.

Variety Robert Koehler

To the film's credit, Maher never engages in Michael Moore-style gotcha tactics, but rather asks questions that raise more questions, in the form of a Socratic dialogue. To believers expecting a blind hatchet job, this will prove both thought-provoking and a bit disarming; skeptics may be surprised (as Maher is) by the occasionally smart replies to his queries.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

As he delivered his climactic sermon in the Israeli desert, I murmured, "Amen, brother." Religulous is a religious experience.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Was Maher afraid he might muddy his clownish jape if he actually brought into the mix a learned theologian?

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

Has a shocking anger and force.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

It's a fairly entertaining bash, with a travelogue vibe established by director Larry Charles ("Borat"). It’s also smug as all hell.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

While even believers can support Maher's skepticism, when he denounces the faithful in sweeping absolutes at film's end, he sounds as absolutely certain as those he has mocked for the previous 100 minutes.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Maher makes Michael Moore look incredibly likable in comparison.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

A major disappointment because here, unlike on "Real Time," Maher aims for laughs instead of insight--and aims low.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

For the most part Mr. Maher is an equal-opportunity denigrator, but it's worth noting that humor fails him when the subject is Muslim fundamentalism. It's hard to make light of what frightens us.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

By focusing so narrowly on religious fundamentalists and bigots while ignoring any spiritual dimension to religion, the film is not only being disingenuous but limits its audience to non-believers.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The problem with the movie, whose title compresses "religious" and "ridiculous" into a single word, isn't that it milks more than one sacred cow but that it does so with minimal subtlety and intelligence.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Bill Maher's one-man stand-up attack on religious fundamentalism is a dog that has more bark than bite--a skeptical, secular-humanist hounding of the hypocrites, amusingly annotated with sarcastic subtitles and clips from cheesy biblical spectacles.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Much of Mr. Maher's film is extremely funny in a similarly irreverent, offhanded way. Some true believers -- at least those who have a sense of humor about their faith -- may even be amused. But most will not.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The bulk of Religulous is a passionate but misguided attempt by Maher to stimulate the 16 percent of the American population who deem themselves non-religious into standing up and being counted.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

More rant than rollick, it's just ain't funny enough.

Premiere Eric Kohn

The lack of insightful commentary keeps the spotlight focused on Maher. That's not restraint; it's a missed opportunity.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The film has a habit of cutting away from interviews for Maher's commentary during the drive to the next location. You can see him trying to work the car for a laugh.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Maher's too smart to make a movie this dumb.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Though he claims to be a seeker, someone who "has to find out" why believers believe, Maher sets out not after answers but cheap laughs that preach, so to speak, to the converted.

Washington Post Neely Tucker

One of the rules of satire is that you can't mock things you don't understand, and Religulous starts developing fault lines when it becomes clear that Maher's view of religious faith is based on a sophomoric reading of the Scriptures and that he doesn't understand that some thoughtful people actually do believe in some sort of spiritual life.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

His scattershot and ad hominem attacks against many different forms of religious hypocrisy don't add up to a coherent critique, and he's not qualified to provide one.