Rating: 
Summary: On my top Ten of 1998
Review: There were rumbling at Paramount Studios in the weeks before the release of The Truman Show. Word was that they knew they had one of the best movies of the year, but feared they had not come up with the right promotional campaign. When I heard this news, I crossed my eyes. How often have we heard that before? After seeing it, I admitted that they were right to worry. Truman Burbank is no ordinary hero, and the picture is even more extraordinary. It is enormously entertaining and strikingly insightful, but it belongs to no known genre. As a society, we have a compulsion to pigeonhole everything. The Truman Show has been labeled a comedy, a drama and a combination of both. I think it has elements of the best science fiction, which is a story that has never happened, but which conceivably could. Call it what you will. This movie is easily one of the Ten Best Films of 1998. I wouldn't be surprised if it won Best Picture at the Oscars. Suppose a television producer were able to create a TV show in which the life of a person was recorded from his birth on. This is the fate of Truman Burbank, brilliant played by Jim Carrey. I've never been caught up in Carrey Mania, but I've usually enjoyed him. My reservation about him has been that, while he is above average in talent, he's previously seemed to play his characters as impersonations of them. The Truman Show is all the proof I need that he can be a true actor. I found myself believing in Truman, not in Jim Carrey as Truman, and that's a tribute to the actor. We are introduced to Truman at the point where the show, now in its 30th year, is starting to unravel. The subject of this massive TV show, which runs 24 hours a day, lives in the world's largest set, a domed structure that must be five miles across. During the opening credits, we are given a quick history of the show. After that, the first scene shows one of the set's five thousand cameras crashing to the ground. It lands just a few feet from the startled Truman. I think he has known for a long time that his world is somehow wrong. Every attempt to leave, for example, has been thwarted. The shattered camera is the first piece of concrete evidence. Since all the other people in town, including his wife and his friends, are actors, there is not much they can do to help him. This behavior merely reinforces his suspicions. I don't think I have ever seen a film this short cover so many issues coherently or operate smoothly on so many levels. You can be merely entertained by it, or you can think about the issues it raises, concerning everything from a society that has become totally voyeuristic to the blurring of what is real to the results of our feeble attempts to play God. If you dare, you might consider the notion that, as a group, we are in danger of entertaining ourselves to death. Don't let the above paragraph put you off. The real magic of The Truman Show is its ability to gratify viewers no matter what level they approach it from. .
Rating:
Summary: It's all a mixed reality
Review: Ed Harris is great in this movie about a TV show 24/7 in the life of Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey). Who hasn't ever thought that they were a "truman" in the life they're living now ("all the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players"). This is a very thought-provoking little film about deception vs reality. Truman's perserverance shines through as he slowly begins to realize that maybe his world is too "perfect". A lot of analyses can compare this to "the Creation" but as a film it stands on its own. Exceptional performances by Ed Harris and Jim Carrey make this a movie that may have you thinking, "should I take that chance and move to an unknown in my life." I have watched this movie over a dozen times and each time it just gets better and I see a few more subtilties in it. A must see for Carrey fans, this should have a world-wide appeal.
Rating: 
Summary: A Very Disturbing Message
Review: The movie is well done and also well acted. The story is fairly original, and, at first, it could pass as an epopee of freedom. All in all, it is not surprising that it has been well received by movie critics and moviegoers worldwide. So, why did I give it only two stars? Because its message disturbed me. I know, you might ask, "How can a movie about freedom possibly disturb you?" Well, the oppressor's name is Christof (note the similarity to Christ), who forces poor Truman (true man = Adam) to live in this horrible (ironic) perfect town, where everything is just "plain perfect." Everything is cool, even though the whole world (think Christof-God and the world-Universe here) knows what Adam... pardon, Truman is doing all the time. Then, Sylvia (read Serpent here) comes along and says, "Adam, wake up, eat this fruit and you shall become...." Sorry again, she says, "Truman, this Garden of Eden is not real, grow up and get outta here." Truman then sails towards freedom and the cruel Christ(of) tries to stop him by saying. "Truman, out there you'll find pain and suffering. Stay here in the garden with me." But since it's cruel to force Truman to remain in such a perfect place, Christof is destined to lose, and Truman finds freedom and Sylvia waiting for him. In the movie, everything is cool at the end, but in the real world things are different. The real thing [stinks] and Truman's grandkids (that's us) complain a lot and say: "You know what... Christ(of) doesn't exist, because, if He did, He wouldn't allow all this pain and suffering instead of letting us live in the perfect garden of Eden." In conclusion, I obviously like freedom - I loved the movie "Watership Down" - but the idea of freedom presented in this flick looks dangerously like a twisted version of Genesis chapter three. Well, these were my five cents...
Rating: 
Summary: Jim Carrey at its best
Review: And in case I don't see ya: Good afternoon, good evening and good night. This movie is sometimes very funny because of the great acting Jim Carrey but the whole content of the story has got a bad mood. The fact that a person is supervised all his life is horrible. But for the spectators Truman becomes part of their life. It's amazing to see that a movie star can become part of a person's life. Everything in Truman's life is fiction and everybody is an actor.
Perhaps one of the best movies which combines seriousness and fun.
Rating:
Summary: How about some real emotion?
Review: This film has features akin to many mediocre science fiction films, in that it establishes an inherently interesting premiss, but fails to portray its protagonist as a credible, fully realised character. Whatever 'journey' or development this character then undertakes seems obvious and almost inevitable, to the point of being unsatisfying. The plot becomes similarly devoid of surprises. Watching this might also be compared with viewing an 'escape' movie (i.e from a prison, or prisoner-of-war camp), where very quickly you know where everything is headed - the pleasure then becomes that of the details, the mood, and unexpected insights into people's behaviour under stress (see 'Le Trou' for a classic example) - unfortunately, 'The Truman Show' is not strong on any of these counts.
*
Jim Carrey has a very limited talent. He seems like a caricature of himself, every facial expression, every bodily gesture, being exaggerated. This is fine for generating a certain kind of humour (Jerry Lewis did something similar), but it seems less than ideal as a technique for evincing audience empathy. His casting here is regrettable. I can imagine people leaping to his defence, but just imagine if this film starred an actor capable of rendering a complex personality, a personality riven with conflicting emotions and desires, rather than the 'one-emotion-at-a-time' style of Carrey - think Jeff Bridges (who appeared in Weir's 'Fearless'), or if you want go for broke, a young Marlon Brando.
*
What is more (or less), every other character is limited in depth and humanity. Ed Harris, blank-faced veteran of such unreflective films as 'The Firm' and 'Apollo 13', gives a one, or possibly two, dimensional performance as producer turned god (perhaps this is forgivable as humanity has never been a notable quality of producers or gods).
*
Weir is at his best being suggestive. 'The Last Wave' is brilliant in this regard. He's great at certain brooding atmospheres - see also 'Witness', or 'Picnic at Hanging Rock'. Here, however, he is being didactic (tediously so) and the atmosphere is cheesy grins and half-baked sentimentalism - not his, or anyone else's, forte.
*
So, be careful with this film. It seems to have scored high marks with the critics, and technicians such as 'script doctors', because it is 'more intelligent' than the average Hollywood product - well, yes, but when you're talking 'Hollywood' and 'intelligence' then you're talking about a very low average.
*
My vote for a truly great contemporary American film goes to David Lynch's 'Mulholland Drive'.
Rating:
Summary: Ingenious concept clouded by a medicore preformence.
Review: The story itself is absolutely brilliant. This movie is definitely not the first to ponder the idea of "a real life in an fake world", but "The Truman Show" somehow seems refreshingly different from other films using variations this theme. I'm not sure what makes "The Truman Show" so unique. Perhaps its the fact that the "Big Brother" of the film is an ordinary flesh-and-blood TV director rather then some powerful futuristic technology (as in "Matrix") or some mysterious supernatural force (as in the "Twilight Zone"). Whether for this reason or another, the story clicks in as a masterpiece. Based on the storyline alone, this could have been the movie of the year, or even the movie of the decade. Unfortunately, nearly all other aspects of the film are nowhere that good. Starting with the script. The details of the script of the movie sometimes spoil good points in the story. A good example of this is the very end of the film. The idea for the story's end is excellent, but it looks rather disappointing on film. As for the acting, it isn't that bad. But it isn't that good either. The guy playing the TV Director Christof is excellent and Jim Carrey is pretty good as Truman, but overall the acting simply isn't that impressive. Other tidbits prove that the producers didn't think too much about making the film consistent. For example, it says that Truman is "10913 days on the air, and he was born in front of a live audience" when it supposed to be near his 30th birthday. This is more than a month off. Just how hard is it to multiply 30 by 365 (or 365 1/4 if you are really picky) and get the right number? It may be unimportant to the plot, but such errors point to the lack of seriousness on the producer's part. To sum things up: I give the film 6 stars (that's no typo) for the storyline, and 2 stars for the preformence. Overall, a 4-star movie.
Rating:
Summary: Watched it 3 times the first week
Review: I really liked this movie and I am going to be able to watch it over and over because of Jim. I am not a fan of Jim Carrey's usual comedy, but he did an excellent job as the lead actor here, I would definately want to check out any other movie he does with a serious role because he is good. Just watch his restrained expression while "mom" makes him sit there with the photo album, he is subtle and conveys perfectly that painful moment that we all had to sit through with someone sometime.....but on with the movie, it is interesting, inspiring, entertaining. I am very happy that I own this movie because I know I will enjoy watching it many many more times.
Rating:
Summary: Jim Carrey: the actor's actor.
Review: This is simply an excellent film overall, with a surprisingly touching and underrated love component thrown in. However, the most underrated aspect of the film is Jim Carrey's incredible performance. I'll put it bluntly and very seriously: for Carrey not to have won a Best Actor Oscar for his work in this film was a complete injustice (although not a surprise whatsoever to anyone familiar with the Academy). He was robbed.
Rating:
Summary: Jim Carrey at his Best
Review: I am not a fan of Jim Carrey and I find many of his movies too over-the-top to be worth watching (just watch "Me, Myself and Irene" to know what I mean). But Truman Show proves to be the exception to the rule. Intended as a comedy, it turns out to be rather thought provoking and moving. The story follows Truman Burbanks, a 30 year old man who has never left his home town. Unbeknown to him, he lives in a giant studio that is visible from space, was adopted at birth by a movie corporation and is viewed daily by millions around the globe. In the 21st century, television viewers in general have reached the point where they are fascinated by individual lives, a trait as old as gossip. Watch Big Brother if you don't believe me. Truman Show is impressive in that it portrays this new trend three or four years before it emerges (it was released in 1998). TV junkies and couch potatoes have an infatuation with watching other people run their lives, hence Big Brother, Survivor and such other series. Personally, I find this a huge waste of time and was not surprised at the recent drop in consumer spending (and hence economy strength) in First World countries - they're all watching TV! Fortunately for the UK and US, Christmas came and everyone suddenly went out buying presents, so the economy was saved. But getting back to the movie, Truman eventually begins to discover what's happening due to some freakish accidents. A studio light falls from the sky, his car radio changes frequency and begins to follow him around. And there's the mysterious Sylvia who manages to spoil the studio's profits by nearly telling Truman what's up and thus making him more inquisitive. The Show is brilliant, and definitely a worthwhile watch. It is funny in parts, more sobering in others. We realise how completely oblivious Truman is to his world (initially, at least) and, for those who've never left home, makes us wonder if WE might be a Truman (figuratively of course)
Rating:
Summary: Great movie, but where are the extra features??
Review: Ok, this movie is wonderful and it is by far Jim Carrey's best, but where are the extra DVD features? I mean, why is there absolutely nothing? It would be 5 stars if it at least had 1 extra feature.
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