I wanted to but couldn't!

hyped garbage

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

An intimate look at one athlete who could be considered truly larger than life, the aptly-named pro wrestling legend Andre the Giant. Not content to simply lean on accrued television footage or the countless tall tales about his epic nights out on the town, this HBO documentary intends to dig deeper, for a closer look at the man behind the myths and exagerrations.As a means of drawing back the curtain, we catch glimpses of Andre's upbringing, from the double-wide handmade chair that still sits at his childhood kitchen table to countless candid photos and clips from the dawn of his career in the ring. It's not a particularly happy story, laced as it is with the everyday difficulties of a jumbo-sized man in a normal-sized world, disconnected familial relationships and chronic pain as his frame struggled to deal with its own mass, but it does feel honest and (mostly) true. The one notable exception being Andre's big main event with Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania III, which seems overly romanticized if not slightly misleading.A better chance to get to know who the giant was away from cameras, to understand his suffering and recognize that, although his size did reap untold fame and fortune, it also made enjoying those fruits excruciatingly difficult or downright impossible. I feel like we barely skimmed the surface.

I've always hated "professional" wrestling as an adult, but I was young and ignorant enough to have occasionally seen Andre on my territory's TV stations and I was fascinated by him. As they said, it was just enough sightings to keep you interested and wondering. This was a very touching tribute to him and what I most liked about it was that they don't try to hide the fact that wrestling is fake and all his fights were staged. Seeing Hulk Hogan and others tearing up over their fellow actor's death was very emotional and real.

It's very good at telling the sad, but also uplifting story of a freak of nature. I use the word freak only in relation to his condition.He found his niche in the new U.S. Barnum freak show, the so called WWE wrestling circus. Don't get me wrong, I think they're great entertainers and actors, which is why so many appear in films. The art of choreography and pulled punches belongs to pro wrestlers, not dancers and actors. Must give a big thumbs up to Hulk Hogan, no shy retiring lad, for basically admitting he'd stand no chance against a fit Andre.

One time in the 80s I ran into Andre in Quebec. We got in an argument over blue vs bleu. I had to give him 7 powerbombs onto an order of hulkaroos and a figure 4. After he tapped we went out for beers and everything was cool. Good guy, good documentary.