Well done, but won't answer many questions.

Rating: Null/10 (19 October 2000)

I can barely remember Taxi back when it was on television, as my tastes were much younger back in its day. Also, I never saw anything Andy Kaufman did besides Taxi back when he was still alive. I did see a Comedy Central special about the enigmatic comic which is really what sparked my interest in Man On the Moon. The movie is very well done. It seems to move a bit fast, compressing Andy's rise to fame seemingly into just a few scenes, but that was okay, since I was guessing the director wanted to focus more on Andy's later life and career. Jim Carrey does an incredibly convincing job of portraying Andy, seeming to get all of his mannerisms and characters pretty much spot on. The supporting cast is largely made up of people who really did work with Andy, and everyone does a good job. Even Courtney Love, though admittedly Andy's relationship with his wife wasn't deeply explored. And that was one of my main complaints with the movie. It was largely very good re-creations of Andy's bits done on camera, and not enough of the man being himself away from the camera. This may have been due to the fact that his mode of expression actually left even people close to him wondering what he really was like. So much so that not a lot of material on the man himself was readily available. And that's a shame. I can see where his material was easily crass and offensive on one hand, while being profound on another level. Was he just wrestling women, or waving a prevailing undercurrent of unspoken attitudes about what women were fit for in society's face? By making stereotypical remarks about Southerners, was he disparaging them, or trying to make people think about how ridiculous stereotypes can be by forcing them to defend themselves against them? True, he may have been a very simply motivated man who just liked to draw raw emotion from people and play pranks, but I would have dearly liked to see some more of what made the man tick, and the movie doesn't deliver much of that. The ending scenes are quite poignant and touching, and he is obviously loved by many around him, but the character of the man himself isn't fleshed out quite enough to show why he was able to endear people to him so. The film focuses just a little on his spiritual beliefs, but once again gives facts and little else. Man On the Moon is entertaining to watch if you're curious about Andy Kaufman's life, certainly. And Andy's comedy is perfectly recreated so you'll find it funny at least to the extent you can enjoy what he did. Just don't expect to get many answers about his deeper motivations for his choice of comedic styling.