don't over analyze

Rating: 1/10 (16 February 2006)

"The Truman Show" is a film in which Jim Carey plays the character Truman Burbank who is an insurance salesman that seems to want more out of life. He finds later that there is something strange about his surroundings that isn't authentic. There must be someone watching him because everything seems to be orchestrated.
He goes on from this to the discovery this hypothesis is true and that there has to be more to the world than he has seen. He tries to escape his surroundings that he was groomed to be accustomed to, and finds that magically every attempt that he makes is unsuccessful because something always comes up as a block.
This aspect of the movie portrays much of what one must imagine would happen in the raising of a wild animal in a controlled environment. They would either find that there is no way out of their environment and eventually give up, or they would rebel. This would be much like in "Jurassic Park", where the dinosaurs find a way out of the fence of the controlled environment. Truman is a wild animal that is kept in a controlled environment that is against his innate will and instinct. His instinct is to explore and find meaning to life. He is a wild man on the lose, and nothing can stop his aspiration to venture to the unknown. This is much the same in "Jurassic Park", in that the animals that once ruled the earth have an instinct of free range. They will, by their instinct, find ways to become top of the chain again.
There are many that will find that the movie "The Truman Show" has some underlying spiritual meaning and that the producers had some great theological statement to make about how we view God and whatever else may come to mind. Many may even say that it is a statement of theodicy in that God has everything perfectly orchestrated to his will but makes mistakes in his outtakes. Others may say that much like what the Mormon church believes, God was just a man that was given high power of which he abused and screwed up thus bringing disorder to his creation.
While all of these are legitimate statements about this movie, none are quite on par as much as to say that this was a movie for the sake of entertainment and poking fun at reality television. While reading many interviews of Weir, one will find that it was a satire on reality television and that it was to show how fake it was. It is almost as if it were to show the persons involved in reality television are pets that are subject to what the master throws at them. All of their responses are controlled and generated responses from a learned behavior in one way or other. These directors have simply learned how to manipulate those responses to get good ratings.
Unfortunately, unlike "Jurassic Park", "The Truman Show" is not worth a sequel. The movie was poorly made and had a juvenile story line. The plot development was not adequate for the audience to fully connect with all of the characters. It was obvious that the prime focus was to give Jim Carey a character portfolio that would bring his career into a deeper, more meaningful position. While this being true, more than likely, this was the only way that a writer of a movie in this caliber could get his work published; one can find an actor with the need to diversify, come up with a budget, and create a film with a big name and it instantaneously happens, they have a career.
For any person to say that this movie had any type of effect on them spiritually, would be to say that the "Care Bears" shaped their epistemology ultimately leading them to Jesus. There is about as much spiritual meaning to this movie as there is in a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and to say otherwise is to deny that of the words of the director and to read cosmetology into "Gandhi".