Take a journey with controversial comedian Bill Maher through America's Bible Belt, stop in at the Holy Land Experience theme park in Florida and meet Ken Ham, owner of the Creationist Museum in Kentucky and the Answers in Genesis website. From there travel to Utah to learn about some magic underwear before popping over the UK to meet Propa-Gandhi (geddit?), a Muslim rapper known for making threats against Salmon Rushdie.

Still want more? OK. Visit Father 'Maverick' at the Vatican or pop over to Holland where you can smoke a joint with Reverend Ferre van Beveren of the First Universal Church of Cantheism. (Yes, it is an excuse to smoke pot all day.)

If you want more you can meet Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda who believes he is the second coming or stop by at the Institute for Science and Halacha in Israel where some Jewish "scientists" have been coming up with creative ways of fooling deities into thinking they are not in fact working on the Sabbath.

Yes 'Religulous' is exactly that: a combination of the religious and the ridiculous brought together as a warning or possibly premonition of where we are going as a society.

It's a given to say that because of the sensitive nature of the content people are going to be offended. If you are a religious person, you may laugh at the madness of other faiths but probably not like it when confronted with your own. If you're agnostic, move along ? no answers here. And atheists can relax, with Bill, and enjoy the ride.

Unfortunately, the rather topical and scary message that 'Religulous' is supposed to be giving to the world is let down by the fact that it is blatantly obvious that Maher would rather poke fun than listen. And while poking fun certainly has its place in this context, he chooses rather to focus on the absurdities than truly delving into the dangers of religious extremism. Yes, it's funny but ultimately pointless.

And while his final speech about how we as a species have learned to precipitate mass death before getting past the neurological disorder of wishing for it has an uncomfortable ring of truth, it is ultimately lost in the wake of the previous hour of giggles.

Maher would do well to have followed some of his own advice that he imparts right at the end: grow up or die.