Ddisappointing execution

Rating: 5/10 (9 October 1998)

I admit, I was prejudiced against Jim Carrey when I walked into the cinema. I had never been able to watch a whole movie with him playing in it. However I had hopes knowing that Peter Weir (Witness, The Mosquito Cost, Dead Poet Society etc.) directed the film. I also heard praises about the film.
Well, I watched this film all the way, and actually I had fun during the second half of it. The ideas were really promising, and the film had some moments, but the first part soap was far too long. People do not go to a cinema to watch daytime TV. It lacked acting too. The characters were playing soap actors and there is not much fun to watching that. And Jim Carrey, who supposed to be the real person in the show was no different from them. Sorry, this guy just cannot form a character because he is a bad actor. Weir should have noticed it since he had directed actors like Harrison Ford and Robin Williams before. Carrey's performance really hurt the film. No wonder the moment Ed Harris, who did a great job realising the allmighty producer of the show, started to dominate the film it got much better.
But on the whole this film belongs to the group of movies you can write a lot about because of the ideas behind them, but you don't want to see them for the second time. In film-making it is fine to have great ideas and be able to talk about them, but if when you have to go out you cannot make them really work then you missed the point.