#22: Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
Release Date: February 4th, 1994
Format: Streaming (Plex)
Written by: Jack Bernstein, Jim Carrey, and Tom Shadyac
Directed by: Tom Shadyac
3.5 Stars
Let me get my major complaint about Ace Ventura out of the way before I go on to say how much I love it: the ending doesn’t work. Now, it is a broad comedy, so it’s not like I need a completely logical ending, but the illogic of the ending doesn’t match the illogic of the rest of the movie. You’re left a little underwhelmed at the end. Until Ace brawls with the Philadelphia Eagle mascot in front of a live Super Bowl audience in the movie’s final scene, and then you love the movie again.
With that out of the way, Ace Ventura is in the conversation for funniest movie ever. Jim Carrey is in every scene in the movie and single-handedly delivers the laughter. There isn’t another comedic character in the movie. How many comedies in the running for ‘Funniest Ever’ can say that? Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, Vacation, Airplane, Caddyshack, Naked Gun, Wayne’s World, Dumb and Dumber, Austin Powers, Anchorman, Superbad, Step Brothers…take your pick, but they all rely on multiple characters to carry the laughs. Even Borat had a sidekick.
But Ace Ventura is the Jim Carrey show.
I remember as a kid seeing the opening UPS delivery guy scene and thinking it was up there with Michael Jackson as the most amazing thing I’d seen a human do on a TV screen. And thirty years later the performance is just as amazing.
And I don’t think it can be overstated just how much Jim Carrey affected comedic acting in the mid-’90s. A few months ago I watched Scream with Bry and Ben and Cynthia, and realized for the first time that Matthew Lillard was just doing a Jim Carrey-impression with his performance. Yesterday I watched Face/Off and you could see Nic Cage incorporating Carrey-isms into his body language and facial expressions.
It’s a shame the Academy mostly rewards “serious art” that they want to believe aligns with their virtuous ethos. It’s all bullshit of course. Name another performance as brilliant and influential as Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Name another performer that could possibly make the material work.
In 1994, Tom Hanks won Best Actor for Forrest Gump. It’s an iconic character with an iconic performance from a lead actor that seems to be singularly suited for the role. That said, I’d argue the only difference in the critical esteem for that performance over Jim Carrey’s is that Forrest Gump teaches us that racism is bad and that you should love your mother. The Academy loves that stuff.
And I love Forrest Gump too. But I’m not sure how you can argue that performance exceeds Carrey’s. If only the Academy valued drugging football players and talking with your ass, maybe Jim Carrey challenges Tom Hanks for Best Actor of 1994.
