The Majestic

Director: Frank Darabont

Cast: Jim Carrey, Bob Balaban, Brent Briscoe, Jeffrey DeMunn, Amanda Detmer, Allen Garfield, Hal Holbrook, Laurie Holden, Martin Landau, Ron Rifkin, David Ogden Stiers, James Whitmore

Genre: Drama 2001

Running time: 154 mins.

Rating:★★

Peter (Jim Carrey), a Hollywood screenwriter who stumbles into tiny Lawson, California, with his memory blanked out by an auto accident. There, he's mistaken by the citizenry to be a long-lost war hero....an identity that Peter also comes to believe while restoring the town's shuttered movie palace and romancing the girl (Laurie Holden) he supposedly left behind. It's the perfect life and, perhaps, the perfect lie. But the truth is bound to surface.

A movie lover in the 1950's, living what he thinks is a perfect life in a city that's glamorous  Hollywood. B-movie screenwriter, whose work gets changed by higher ups and he doesn't haven't the courage to stand up for himself. His perfect wannabe actress girlfriend leaves him and lastly, he's being accused of being a Communist, making the studio wanting to do with him until it clears up. If it clears up. Some perfect life. It isn't until the accident and he lands himself on the shore in a small town with no memory that he finally finds genuine kindness and acceptance. However, he's being confused for someone else. With Martin Landau as your father, hell who cares.

It becomes apparent that prior to the accident, Peter was slowly losing the pure joy for moving pictures and his sense of self. Post accident, he is surrounded by people who still carry that joy in their hearts that is going remind Peter why he wanted to become a screenwriter in the first point. The latter, is getting a little ahead of myself because the Peter character lost his memory. Nevertheless, aiding in reopening the town's palace of a theater, The Majestic. Heartwarming as the film is and has an organically subtle story with continuity; the film is predictable. One could argue that similar to a great deal (not all mind you, I'm not implying that) of the films of the 1950's had a predictable formula. Therefore because this film is set in the fifties and it's plot is surrounded by the pure joy of movies that the predictability of the plot is reminiscent of that era in a modern way and shouldn't matter. Well, it matters to me, GOD BLAMMIT!

As a child, I loved Jim Carrey. When the Mask came out, I was like "yeah this man is the shit!" Now, he's up there with Will Ferrell, where if I never see another one of their films again, I'd be okay with that. There would have to be a really well casted group of actors working with them for me to possibly to reconsider. And this film does has a well-casted group of actors, it hardly changes my opinion on Jim Carrey.