stevenforbis

The basic concept was earnest, young art school grad Jim Carrey lands his dream job at a venerable animation studio only to find the crazy people who work there are running the place into the ground and it is up to him to be the responsible grown up who keeps it all together. See the irony? One of the greatest physical comics ever, a man who is himself a living cartoon character, is locked into a straight-man role, while everyone else on the show is supposed to be a lunatic. Carrey is such a good actor that when he emerged a decade later as a wild man on "In Living Color," I was absolutely amazed. It didn't help anything that this show took the time slot of the truly inspired "Buffalo Bill" show with, oh, you know, Dabney Coleman, Gina Davis...

Anyone who knows anything knows that the original version of this made-for-A&E movie was a made-for-PBS movie from the late '70s (PBS's first, if memory serves), and it was just fantastic.

So, remaking it would have to be a disaster, right? Wrong. In this case, the subject matter of the movie is alternate realities and it turns out that an intelligent remake can be different and yet as good as the original.