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"He's the best there is! Actually, he's
the only one there is!"
Right before the big Super Bowl game, someone
steals the Miami Dolphin's prized mascot, a dolphin that does
tricks with a football. What are the owners to do? Go to a rather
off the wall, wacky pet detective, Ace Ventura!
The basic story tells the tale of Ace Ventura's
efforts to uncover who and why the mascot of the Miami Dolphins
was kidnapped, and bring the dolphin back to the stadium before
the big super bowl game. Jim Carrey's comedic talent is show-cased
in this unusual script, and holds the story together.
The script offers a good arena for Carrey's rubber
face and body. Jack Bernstein and Tom Shadyac & Jim Carrey
wrote the wild screenplay, that bases its humor on "exaggerated,
comic absurdity", which works 90% of the time, if you enjoy
this kind of humorous genre. This is the film that really launched
Carrey's career, who was primarily known from TV's, "In Living
Color". After a string of successes, including "The
Mask", "Dumb and Dumber", "Ace Ventura: When
Nature Calls", "Liar Liar" and "The Truman
Show." Carrey is one of Hollywood's highest paid stars.
There are many entertaining scenes in this goofy
comedy. The opening hilarious sequence of scenes are a good example
of this genre. Ace Ventura has disguised himself as a package
deliverer, working for a private delivery service, like UPS. He
is carrying a box marked fragile. On his way to his destination
he drops, kicks, does antics with the package, to be sure everything
is broken inside. Carrey shows what popular theory thinks about
how fragile packages are really handled by carriers, When he gets
to the apartment, he gives the rough-looking guy inside, some
paperwork to do. He sees his client's little dog, swaps it with
a toy dog look-a-like, and puts the real dog in his shirt. About
5 minutes after he leaves, the guy realizes that Ace has taken
back the guy's ex-girlfriend's dog, and races after him with a
baseball bat, and manages to break both the front and back windows
of Ventura's fixer-upper car, before Ventura manages to escape!
Ventura not only gets paid in an unconventional way for getting
the dog back for his client, but gets a naturally air-conditioned
car in the process, a bonus from this case!
Another rather funny moment is when Carrey, while
on the trail of a potential suspect, dresses in a tutu, pretends
to be mentally ill, in order to get into the hospital's storage
of patient's belongings, while his accomplice, Melissa Robinson
(Courteney Cox), pretending to be his sister, supposedly checks
him in. Cox went on to great fame on the hit TV series, "Friends."
Thoroughly enjoyable is Carrey's impersonations
of the Star Trek crew, while investigating the missing dolphins
empty tank. Impersonations, one of Carrey's strong gifts, are
often woven into his various movies, such as "The Mask."
Another favorite scene takes place late in the
film. A wild revelation, concerning Lieutenant Lois Einhorn's
TRUE identity, is well worth waiting for, and a perfect caper
to the crazy antics leading up to it. Sean Young, as Lieutenant
Lois Einhorn, is well cast as a tough police captain, with a BIG
secret. You don't have to like Young to enjoy her performance.
The fine direction is by the talented Tom Shadyac,
who has a flair for comedy. He also directed "Patch Adams,"
Liar Liar," and "The Nutty Professor."
Sports fans may enjoy seeing quarterback Dan
Marino and other Miami Dolphins in roles. While Marino doesn't
embarrass himself, he should probably keep his day job.
It is rated PG 13 due to some of the crude humor
included in parts throughout the script, which isn't everyone's
cup of tea.
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