EdTV is not a bad movie. It's not a good movie. It's just okay.

These are the kind of films Ron Howard makes, most of the time. There's occasional moments of greatness, occasional missteps and failures, and long stretches of middle-of-the-road filmmaking, where everything--from the direction to the acting to the writing--is merely serviceable. It's entertaining enough, but it passes right through you like crap through a goose, and it never sticks to the bones. EdTV fits right in alongside such Howard gems as Ransom, The Paper and Far and Away. He's made a few great movies ( Apollo 13 and Parenthood are my faves) and stinkers like Willow, but he's best characterized as a fiercely average filmmaker. As you might expect, EdTV is also fiercely average.

Matthew McConaughey stars as the title character, Ed Pekurny, who is chosen by a television executive (Ellen DeGeneres) to have his life videotaped and broadcast on television 24 hours a day. Yeah, yeah-- it's The Truman Show warmed over. Literally. While Truman took a cerebral, satirical angle to the concept, EdTV takes a more heartwarming and tender approach. Mushed together somehow, they'd probably make a perfect movie. As it stands, Truman lacked heart, and EdTV lacks brains.

Of course, Ed eventually rebels against the constant taping, especially when his girlfriend starts to suffer a cruel media backlash. When he tries to leave, it's the owner of the network, Dr. Whitaker (Rob Reiner), who informs him that his contract cannot ever be broken, and that it's up to the network to decide when the show has run its course. (Reiner seems poised to act as the Garry Marshall of the new millennium, hopping into any obviously Jewish character of authority at a moment's notice.) Ed comes up with a clever way to break the contract and get off TV, DeGeneres is able to redeem herself and flip off the evil network owners, and Ed returns to normal life once more. Break out the bubbly!

Some of the performances in EdTV are quite good, and it's the acting that makes much of the film worth watching. McConaughey holds the action together well as the victim of the 24-hour intrusion into his life, though Woody Harrelson steals more scenes as Ed's slightly obnoxious, entreprenurial brother. Jenna Elfman is a big surprise in her role as Ed's girlfriend; she's a deeply annoying personality on television, but her most disgusting flaws are sumberged to great effect in this film performance.

Another unexpected surprise is Sally Kirkland as Ed's mother. The film's script gives her some inexplicable emotional hurdles to hop over near its end, as Ed's mom returns to his birth father (Dennis Hopper) for a brief moment of passion, rejecting Ed's stepfather (Martin Landau), who is sickly and apparently unable to satisfy Ed's mom properly. Ed's birth father dies during the sex, and though the entire subplot seems shrugworthy in writing, it somehow finds a way to work, thanks to Kirkland's gutsy and gushing performance. There's little restraint in her character; she's had a hard life and she's lived it a hard way. It's great work that would deserve an Oscar nomination...if the movie that surrounded it had more to offer.

Unfortunately, there's not much to EdTV. It's funny sometimes, occasionally touching, mostly forgettable. Maybe Howard was too busy telling any reporter who would listen how cool George Lucas' The Phantom Menace looked in his private screenings of the film to notice that the movie he was directing was rapidly careening into mediocrity. Or, maybe boring middle-of-the-road moviemaking is all we can expect from Richie Cunningham.