The Emperor's New Comedian

Rating: 9/10 (24 September 2000)

Let me say, first, that the film is brilliantly done. I think Jim Carrey is really underrated as an actor. He really shone here: it was very, very easy to think of him as Andy Kaufman; I can't imagine anyone who could have done it better. And given the number of people involved in making this movie, who were actually there and knew Andy, I imagine it's quite accurate.
But as someone else here has stated, your reaction to this movie will depend largely on what you thought of Andy Kaufman. If you were fortunate (?) enough to have seen any of his performances (apart from Latka, which was fairly mainstream), you most likely thought, "What the hell was *that*?" My high school principal used to tell a joke. It was a really stupid joke. If I told it to you, you would say, "That's a stupid joke." And you'd be right -- it's a really stupid joke. But you might also laugh. I always do. I've never understood why this particular joke struck me funny -- it just always has.
Andy Kaufman was like that. Why did I laugh? I don't know. He was stupid! But I laughed when I saw him, and I laughed all through this film, and I cried at the end.
It's obvious people loved Andy in person -- look at the credits! Have you ever seen such a list of Herself/Himself credits in a feature film? Astounding.
And so, here I am, 16 years later, still scratching my head and thinking "What the hell was *that*?" And laughing.