#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 movie’s climax doesn’t work. It’s illogical and hinges the entire story on a kind of implausible Scooby Doo unmasking of the bad guy (it’s also overtly transphobic as well). It’s an ugly tone, and unfortunate, because the rest of the movie is a great time.
But if you are able to contextualize the movie’s transphobic ending, it’s in the conversation for the funniest movie ever made (by the way, Ace Ventura is not alone in its hetero centricity. Go back and watch some of those beloved Hollywood comedies from the ‘90s and ‘00s and see how loaded they were with homophobic and transphobic humor).
So yes, the ending is unfortunate, but as a star-making vehicle for Jim Carrey? This thing is a rocketship.
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? From your favorite Marx Brothers or Three Stooges flick, through Blazing Saddles or Naked Gun or Anchorman or Superbad…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 think aligns with their 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.
The year it came out, 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.
