Strong premise, weak execution

Rating: 7/10 (13 September 1998)

What occurs in the first act of "The Truman Show" is about as good as it gets. The expectations for this movie (and probably most of its overrated praise) are based on the first half of the movie in which the Ed Harris character describes "no scripts", "no cuecards", and most importantly that Truman (Jim Carrey, in not a "serious" role but one not nearly as silly as he's played before) is a genuine character, not artificially created. Now, if this were all true and the movie evolved as it should have along these lines, perhaps it would deserve all the praise it is getting. However, everything that happens in the later 2/3 of the movie completely undermines everything we've been lead to believe about this world Truman lives in. Imagine my utter disapointment when during what seemed like a truely emotional scene between Truman and his best friend, we cut to the control room to find the best friend being fed his lines! What was that about not cue cards? What follows completely destroys what was one a wonderful premise and gives no hope of redemption. Even when Truman finally goes against the odds and attempts to escape the small island, it turns out to be a case of too little, too late.