I went into “Man On The Moon” with little to no knowledge of Andy Kaufman. The bizarre entertainer of the 70s and 80s was known for staging elaborate pranks but he seems a little too avant-garde for my tastes. He was loved by many and hated by many more for his eccentric style. This film seems to do a good job in at least bringing you into Andy Kaufman’s strange world and it has a spectacular performance from Jim Carrey (“The Truman Show”, “The Mask”) as Kaufman.

“Man On The Moon” shows the surreal career of entertainer Andy Kaufman. We see him from his early days playing the clubs to hitting the big time with the sitcom “Taxi” to his death due to lung cancer.

Jim Carrey needs to get more credit for his fantastic portrayal of Kaufman here. Behind the scenes, Carrey was supposedly losing his mind and getting into physical fights with cast and crew members. Danny DeVito (“Twins”) is entertaining as Kaufman’s manager, George Shapiro. Many of the people that worked with Andy Kaufman actually appear in this movie as themselves so we see Christopher Lloyd (“Back To The Future”), wrestler Jerry Lawler and interviewer David Letterman all make appearances.

While I do not really get the appeal of Kaufman’s work, I applaud the work of Jim Carrey in capturing the madness of Kaufman. The odd career of Kaufman saw him wrestling women, getting into fights on interview shows, taking his audience for milk and cookies and trashing the set of “Taxi” as his alter ego, Tony Clifton. When he did actually die, many people assumed that it was another prank. “Man On The Moon” is not a brilliant movie but it does offer a fascinating look into the mind of a genuinely weird individual. It’s also nice to see Carrey in another movie that has him do more than just pull silly faces.