Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond (2017)

I was wandering through the documentary section on Netflix when I stumbled upon Chris Smith's Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond. I couldn't believe there was a documentary about Jim Carrey so, of course, I ended up watching it. 

The film is about the making of Milos Forman's Man on the Moon, the biopic of comedian Andy Kaufman, and focuses on how Jim Carrey prepared, actually, how he essentially became Andy Kaufman for the role in the film. 

I've never been much of a fan of Jim Carrey. Sure, I enjoyed some of his movies, even the dumb ones, but I always thought of him as a show-off, one of those people who use their art to scream at the top of their lungs, "please, look at me", and never took him seriously as an actor because of this, reason why his performance in Charlie Kaufman's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind blew my mind. 

This documentary provides a quite interesting lock at the kind of actor Jim Carrey really is, especially when facing the challenge of playing more complex roles than he usually plays. His approach to the role for Man on the Moon was a beyond extreme method acting as not only Carrey completely immersed himself in Andy Kaufman's persona while on set, but he would act like Kaufman throughout the entire production. He would never break out of character, not even, especially, when Andy's family and friends were around. He was a nightmare to work with and many times I felt sorry for the crew and his costars for having to put up with his obnoxiousness. 

Netflix

While Jim becoming Andy is the main focus of the documentary, Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond also explored Carrey's career from a very early stage up to present day and shows the influence his father had on him as well as Kaufman's. And Carrey comes off as someone who isn't completely right in the head. 

Ultimately, the film does a good job at analysing Jim Carrey and overall it's quite compelling. There are some boring bits here and there though, which prevent the film from being fully enjoyable. 

Me, Myself & Irene (2000)

We, the people doing the Thursday Movie Picks series, had a meltdowns week earlier this year and Steven from Surrender to the Void picked Me, Myself & Irene. It sounded like a fun Jim Carrey movie so I finally checked it out. 

The film is about Charlie Baileygates (Jim Carrey), a Rhode Island State Police trooper whose life started falling into pieces on his wedding day when his wife (Traylor Howard) started cheating on him and eventually gave birth to three African-American kids. When she leaves him, Charlie takes upon the task to raise the triples. He becomes a loving and loved father but everyone else mistreats him and takes advantage of him. One day he snaps, his other rude and violent personality, Hank, takes over and, diagnosed with split personality disorder, he's assigned to escort a woman, Irene (Renée Zellweger) back to New York and must protect her from her corrupt ex-boyfriend (Daniel Greene). 

Although it's directed by the Farrelly brothers and it stars Jim Carrey, I was expecting the film to be good as it starts out as an interesting story about a man who is afraid of confrontation. Unfortunately, as I should have expected from those guys, the film takes a turn for the worse and the plot not only is silly, over-the-top and predictable but it's also insulting to all those people suffering from mental illnesses. Somehow, the story manages to be engaging. Bits of it at least as at times it feels so dragged and unappealing.

The characters aren't much better either, definitely too one-dimensional for a comedy like this too. Charlie is the kind of man you feel sorry for; Hank is the kind of guy nobody likes. The confrontation between these two should be funny but because of the lack of development, it is not as funny as it could have been. The character of Irene is also pretty thin and shallow. The rest, they are not even worthy of a mention. 

20th Century Fox

Me, Myself & Irene is not an utter waste of time though. Although he alone was not enough to keep me interested and engaged throughout the entire film, Jim Carrey once again displays his terrific facial expressions and weird body movements and gives a funny and entertaining performance both as Charlie and Hank —he is way more effective as Hank though. Renée Zellweger is completely wasted in here, but she is so sweet and charming, you end up caring about her character. 

As for the humour, it's juvenile, crude and racist at their best. It's not like I was expecting a clever sense of humour, it's the Farrelly brothers after all, but they could have spared us some of those dreadful jokes and gags. They do manage to get a few genuine laughs though. 

The Bad Batch (2016)

I loved Ana Lily Amirpour's A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night so I could tell you I watched The Bad Batch because of it. I could also tell you that I had high expectations about it. But the truth is I watched it because of Jason Momoa, which is why I didn't have a lot of expectations from it (also, I read m.brown's review months ago and it didn't sound that good).

The film is set in a near future and follows a young woman named Arlen (Suki Waterhouse) after she is dumped into the Texas desert with other rejects of the American society known as the bad batch. Eventually, she is captured by a tribe of cannibals, led by Miami Man (Jason Momoa), who severe her right arm and leg. She manages to escape and makes her way to another tribe, led by a man known as The Dream (Keanu Reeves).

There is no need to delve more into the plot as nothing really happens in the film. Just a lot of tedious nonsense and characters doing the most idiotic and crazy shit, which is a bummer since the beginning was quite interesting and gripping.

In addition to a non-existent plot that moves at a snail-like pace, The Bad Batch also has plenty of uninteresting and weird characters --I mean, cannibal bodybuilders? I think I've seen it all now. They are pretty thin and underdeveloped, they barely speak and you won't probably give a damn about any of them.

Considering that, it doesn't come as a surprise that the cast does a terrible job. Suki Waterhouse (I had to google her because I had no idea who she was. Apparently she is a British model. Which explains a lot) is a terrible lead. She doesn't have the charm needed to make you like the character, and she has the same blank expression from start to finish. Not to mention the awful, Texan I suppose, accent she is doing here. Unfortunately, hers isn't even the worst accent. That would be Momoa's accent. The guy is really struggling to do a Cuban accent and the result is that a, it sounds weird, and b, it's almost impossible to understand what he's saying. Jim Carrey, who plays a sunburnt, mute Hermit, looks like he can't believe he is in the movie. Keanu Reeves, on the other hand, seems to be having a lot of fun as the Dream.

Neon

Thankfully, The Bad Batch has some redeeming qualities. The film has a really great dystopian atmosphere which is enhanced by the great soundtrack Amirpour picked, and the cinematography is terrific (and Jason Momoa is shirtless). These few aspects alone aren't enough to make the film bearable though.