Review of Man on the Moon (1999) by Charles M — 04 Oct 2010

Im as split about this film as I am about its main character. I had never even heard about Andy Kauffman before seeing the fil, so as far as Jim Carrey's interpretation of the man goes, I'm clueless. Carrey does a stand up job at making the personnage interesting as he does at making him dispicably cruel and annoying. Milos Forman did a great job at portraying the characters and the time setting in which the story was based. Unfortunately, the story can loose intrigue from time to time, and seeing as the film is technically "not supposed to be comic", well you never really laugh either. It always feels like we're watching the life of Kauffman from afar, therefor we never really get attached to him, or even really like him for that matter. This is an artsy film, not an easy way to distract yourself on a saturday night.

The Ups.

Great performances by Jim Carrey, Danny Devito and Paul Giamatti before he got really fat.

A nice little bio pic about who Kauffman was and what he did with his life.

Good cinematography, good colors and costumes, ad a nice linear story directed by Milos Forman (One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest).

Lassie music, and the intro of the film was quite cute.

The Downs.

What the hell is Courtney Love doing in this movie, the relationship between Kauffman and his girlfriend is absolutely useless. It was distracting more than anything else when you thought that Kauffman actually cared about something.

The cancer years fly by very fast, I'm not sure if they worked the dramatic side of the film enough. I felt emotionally unsatisfied at the end of the movie.

It's not funny, it's not nice, its not anything, it feels somewhat useless.