‘Truman Show’ brilliantly satirizes TV> Carrey film focuses on puyblic’s obsession with one man’s life

“The Truman Show.” Directed by Peter Weir. Written by Andrew Niccol. Running time: 104 minutes. Rated PG (for mild language).

For better or worse, we’ve become a nation consumed by television, a country roped in by spectacle and imprisoned by counterfeit reality.

Television is, of course, our national addiction, our leading drug of choice, the glowing box that sits in our living rooms and kitchens, filling the dead air between us with an endless chatter that can be mind-numbing.

But when the drama is real — say, when a white Bronco races along a Los Angeles highway or when a princess lies dying in a Paris tunnel — television becomes something altogether different, an unscripted, unpredictable, irresistible window into real life. Suddenly, even those who seldom watch television find themselves transfixed by it, losing sleep over it, leaving on their sets well into the night.

Such is the case in Peter Weir’s brilliant satire, “The Truman Show,” a cutting-edge social commentary that stars Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank, a naive, 30-year-old man whose entire life has been nothing more than a television series broadcast 24 hours a day to hundreds of millions around the globe.

Truman is, by far, the most famous person on the planet, though he doesn’t know it. Everyone in his life — his wife, Meryl (Laura Linney), his best friend, Marlon (Noah Emmerich), his friends at work, even those he meets or sees in the street — is nothing more than a paid actor hilariously sneaking in product endorsements throughout the day. But when Truman begins to suspect that things are not what they seem, that the God of this world is in fact a sinister man named Christof (Ed Harris), he pushes to escape from the 5,000 cameras hidden around the fictional town of Seahaven, Fla., and move into a world beyond the great dome that has imprisoned him since childhood.

In the weeks of hype that have preceded the film’s opening, “The Truman Show” has been called “The Movie of the Year!” and “The Movie of the Decade!” by an enthusiastic band of critics rightfully delighted by the film’s imaginative premise, and also thrilled to see Jim Carrey breaking free of his silly past.

Still, while the premise is well worth the hype (and I highly recommend the film because of its excellent execution and the complex questions that arise about our culture because of it), is Carrey worth the hype?

In a word — no. When you go for the fart joke, as Carrey has done time and again in his previous films, eventually — hopefully — you will emerge from all that bad gas seeking cleaner air. This is known in certain circles as seeking respect. Carrey has gone looking for that respect and critics have embraced him for it. Good for Carrey.

But when you’ve been so desperate for a laugh that you’ve clucked like a chicken or barked like a dog, that stigma can be monumental to overcome. Robin Williams succeeded in “Dead Poets Society,” also directed by Weir, but Carrey hasn’t had the same luck (nor does he have Williams’ talent). He is good here, though — toned down, neutered, wings clipped, at times genuinely moving — but his performance does not stun or surprise as one is led to believe.

Indeed, just because Jim Carrey has left the petri dish doesn’t mean he’s done so without some of the bacteria still clinging to his feet.

Grade: B+

Video to Burn

“Starship Troopers.” Directed by Paul Verhoeven. Screenplay by Ed Neumeier. Running time: 130 minutes. Rated R (for graphic violence, language and nudity).

In this, director Paul Verhoeven’s first film since “Showgirls,” it’s hard to say which is more embarrassing — the cast of former Ivory Snow babies shooting the thoraxes off gigantic insects, or the insects themselves upstaging the cast with more nuanced — and believable — performances.

It would be unfair to say that “Starship Troopers” is a bad film; some of the computerized imagery is breathtaking. But if a good, compelling story still matters — and, with few exceptions, I’m not convinced it does, at least not in today’s Hollywood — the story behind this film is dreadfully weak, poorly written, too long by a third, and crammed with cliches.

Based on Robert Heinlein’s 1959 science fiction novel, “Starship Troopers” is about mankind’s anemic efforts to battle the Bugs, a ferocious band of insects taking over the galaxy … which isn’t a bad thing considering that mankind has been dumbed down to people like Caspar Van Dien, the film’s star, who has fussy hair and a great big photogenic jaw. Clearly, the considerable grunting Van Dien does in this film helped him ease his way into another film — “Tarzan and the Lost City,” in which he grunts and swings like an acrobat with an inner-ear problem.

One wishes Van Dien well in his brief career as an actor.

I suppose there is a slight chance that Verhoeven is being ironic in this film; there are moments, particularly in the film’s funny propaganda sequences, when it seems that he might be reaching toward some kind of loose parody. Then again, I suppose there’s also a chance that “Showgirls” was really a tender, Oscar-caliber film which critics misread as a contrived piece of gross exploitation that nearly ruined Elizabeth Berkley’s tepid career.

Grade: D

Christopher Smith, a writer and critic who lives in Brewer, reviews films each Monday in the NEWS.