Good...but not Great

Rating: 7/10 (22 December 1999)

"Man on The Moon" is a good movie, but is not great.
For the first three quarters of the movie, I felt like I was watching a compilation tape of Andy Kaufman's greatest hits, which is good, but I'd rather just watch an old video of Kaufman. There was no exposition into the personality or life of Andy until the final few minutes of the movie.

I was also confused by Courntey Love's presence in the movie. We meet her, she hates Andy, then she goes on a date with him, then she is marrying him, then they are going out, and then they move in together. This is representitive of the major problem with the movie, it jumps around from major point in Andy's life to major point, while avoiding specifics.
I thought that there were few minor factual anecdotes that were missing that would have worked nicely. First, when Andy, on Letterman, wearing neck brace and all, apologizes to his parents, and says "I know I've never said this before, but I love you." Putting that in would have made the movie a lot better. Also, there was no mention of his daughter that he put up for adoption.
I also thought that since "Taxi" was a major part of Andy's life, Foreman could have dedicated more then a short montage to it.
Carrey was good when playing Andy playing someone else, but seemed, when he was playing "Andy" Andy, was varying. Danny Devito was good, and seemed to really enjoy his part.
If you are a big fan of Kaufman's work, want to find out about it, or indeed want to find out about what part's of Andy's routine was real or not, then this is the movie for you. If you are looking for the method and reasoning behind the man, then this really doesn't work.