This was a documentary that kept up all the fictitious pretences of the WWE universe. Very disappointing.

Andre the Giant is a documentary co-produced by WWE. So a chunk of the documentary is spent on how Vince McMahon sr & jr built up their wrestling empire from the north eastern territory to a national wrestling organisation, gobbling up smaller rivals and joining up with the emerging cable television stations. Andre Roussimoff takes a back seat in his own film.Andre was a normal child in a French village, he played football and rugby. It was only at the age of 15 he started to grow and grow. Later in his life it was discovered that he suffered from a disorder called acromegaly, which caused his gigantism. I know these were the days without the internet and Google. It does make you wonder that all those medics in wrestling and no one figured why this 7 foot plus person was still growing?However you get to hear more of Andre Roussimoff, from fellow wrestlers, his friends and more importantly his family that includes his daughter who he did not see often. Andre was a gentle man who could never run away from his size. A legendary drinker, actor Cary Elwes mentions it was to dull the pain in his joints. By the end of his career, he was in immense pain caused by his size.Andre the Giant is a look at a figure who bridged the gap when US wrestling moved to a new era but it feels superficial when you have scenes of Hulk Hogan in Rocky III.

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.

Masterful look at the man and myth that pretty much does everything it needed to. The one tiny caveat I have is that it would have perhaps been beneficial to show the painful final few matches he had just to give a sense of how far he'd fallen, but I get that they didn't want to dwell too much on the sad end. Plenty of tear jerking moments.