Ace Ventura

I’m really excited for this month because I will be looking at some classic Jim Carrey comedies. However, I would just like to point out that it won’t be just any of his comedies, I will be looking at the comedies that has sequels where Carrey didn’t even star in. So let’s get started with Jim Carrey’s feature-length debut, “Ace Venture: Pet Detective,” released in 1994, which happens to be one of my favorite Jim Carrey movies.

When Jim was on "Inside the Actors Studio," he told James Lipton that he went to dinner with Anthony Hopkins and found out that their approaches to Ace Ventura and Hannibal Lecter were the same. Jim based Ace off of a smart bird, like a parakeet or a cocktail. The walk, head movement, clothing and hair were all based on a colorful bird. Hopkins told Carrey that was his exact approach for Hannibal Lecter, where he based it off of a reptile, which were a tarantula and crocodile.

Jim Carrey goes to great lengths in this comedy. Actually, he bends over and lets his rear end do that talking in this debut. An improvisation phenomenon from beginning to end, Carrey’s first comedy is as joyfully vulgar as it is absurdly creative.

Carrey’s physical comedy and insane kind of humor will be a treat to fans of “In Living Color,” where he made such hilariously crazy characters as Fire Marshall Bill and bodybuilder Vera de Milo. Rita Kempley stated in her review, “While Ace Ventura has some attributes in common with Bill and Vera, he is much more endearing than either of those two pucksters.” To start off, he really loves animals.

Ace’s apartment looks like he has a zoo in it, with a skunk in the basket, an otter in the toilet and two penguins in the refrigerator along with squirrels, lizards, raccoons and a variety of more everyday local animals. “I don’t do people,” says Ace, who is put on a case of the kidnapping of the Miami Dolphins’ mascot, Snowflake, along with the strange disappearance of quarterback Dan Marino (looking embarrassed and uncomfortable). Ace says that he will find Snowflake, but he lets another agent find Marino, who happens to be his enemy, the cruel and mysterious officer Lt. Einhorn, played by the hot Sean Young (the same actress who originally supposed to be Vicki Vale in “Batman,” but broke her arm after falling off a horse and dressed up as Catwoman in order to get casted in “Batman Returns” during production, and that’s no joke).

During his unusual investigations, he falls in love with Dolphins’ modest marketing director, played by Courtney Cox, who sees inside of Ace’s polychromatic clothing, his peacock style hair, jaw-nibbling bite and bird style walk and head movement. Watching him communicate with her dog, she falls for his compassion. “You really love animals, don’t you?” she asks. “If it gets cold enough,” he replies.

Kempley said, “The ripostes and concept originated with writer Jack Bernstein, then were honed and supplemented by first-time director Tom Shadyac and kooked up by Carrey -- all three of whom are credited for the skeletal screenplay.” A parody of cop movies, the story gets every usual trait. Ace has a good friend – the one who talks to his rear, played by Tone Loc. He is the district officer who hesitantly gives him information. Also is the already mentioned female cop, Einhorn, who has a secret prize on where to find Snowflake.

Kempley noted, “They act as foils for Carrey, who probably could have worked solo and still made the movie work, considering he's got more energy to expend than the Tennessee Valley Authority. As with the most memorable clowns, he's got enormous athleticism and flexibility.” At one part he puts himself into a cardboard box to escape the doctors of a mental asylum. For this part he is in a pink tutu and boxers. You actually see at one part that Jim is in his birthday suit.

Carrey will do anything to get laughs, to an extent and including putting a bathroom plunger in his mouth. You just have to see the movie to believe it. Kempley said, “And if you love bawdy, gut-busting hilarity and stupid pet tricks then this is your "Ace”.”

I saw this movie at my second cousin’s house and we were laughing so much watching this. It wasn’t until I was talking to some friends when I was in Middle School that they said that there was a sequel to this movie, which I didn’t know and I was surprised at. To my surprise, my second cousin owned it as well and I saw it at his house. That one made us laugh so much as well. If you want to know what I mean, let’s take a look. This is the 1995 sequel, “Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls.”

Entertainment Weekly stated their review out by saying, “From Jerry Lewis to Eddie Murphy, the bottom-line rule of thumb in contemporary American film comedy has been that the more control a performer has over his movies, the less funny — less daring, more self-indulgent — they become.” That’s not really with Jim Carrey, this being his fourth starring role that was his best at the time. EW mentioned, “Unlike so many superstar comics before him, Carrey has retained a raw hunger for The Joke — the killer punchline, the ultimate sight gag — that seems insatiable, and this gives his work a furious, omnivorous energy.” Even when the jokes look unoriginal as the movie’s subtitle, Carrey regularly makes you fall out of your seat through the usual free will.

This sequel takes Ace to Africa, where he is put on a case to find the rare white bat. EW noted, “Unlike his character in Dumb and Dumber, Carrey’s Ace is all coolness and confidence — he swaggers around the jungle with that hip-swiveling, John Wayne-on-joy juice walk, sassing everybody in sight. (Trust me: Kids all over America will be hitting you with Ace’s new wise-guy catchphrase “Spank you — spank you very much.”)” As always, the verbal comedy is silly and vulgar, and the physical humor is carefully considered and really vulgar.

Ian McNeice plays the British ambassador who joins Ace on his bat mission, and Carrey’s “In Living Color” friend Tommy Davidson is terrific (and unrecognizable) as a warrior of the Wachootoo tribe. EW said, “But mucus might just as well receive costar billing too, for all the gleefully gross screen time Carrey gives it. There’s also a scene in which a mechanical rhinoceros “gives birth” to a naked Ace (sorry, the context is impossible to explain here) that would do Laurel and Hardy — and Luis Buñuel — proud.”

Carrey and the writer Steve Oedekerk, debuting as the director, are not afraid to parody African-jungle-movie stereotypes. They get away with possibly unpleasant material: None of the African characters are stupid, or simple figures of enjoyment. (Carrey inserts a kindly funny romantic scene with the film’s only noticeable woman, a tribal princess played by Sophie Okonedo.)

Just to clarify, “Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls” is very irregular and basically fails in the last half hour, but it’s so much fun at first. EW ended their review by saying, “Plus, Carrey is one of the few comedians I know of who, at the end of the 20th century, are resourceful enough to coin a fresh slang term for doing a nasty act (for the record, it’s ”practicing my mantra”). No, spank you, Ace.”

Another surprise of mine is that there is a direct-to-video sequel to this movie that Jim Carrey didn’t even star in. I’m of course referring to the 2009 garbage, “Ace Ventura Jr.: Pet Detective,” which I think I found out about online.

It has been great to watch “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” change from a critical thrash when it opened to something looking like a slapstick classic. Along with its wildly crazy sequel, “When Nature Calls,” this series has become a beloved comedic enjoyment, a lot of it because of Jim Carrey’s effortless, crazy work as the protagonist animal detective. Imagine the excitement of a third “Ace Ventura” movie, with the promise of Carrey returning to his first character after a 14-year absence spent trying to convince everyone that he can be a serious actor, ready to put on the teased and raging mannerisms to make his fans laugh hard again. I like the sound of that.

Would you be surprised that Josh Flitter is taking over instead?

Trying to understand his passion with animal life, Ace Ventura Jr. (Josh Flitter) is constantly being a pain to his mother Melissa (Ann Cusack, might be playing the same role Courtney Cox played) at a local zoo. When a series of animal kidnappings are going all over the Orlando, Florida area, Ace tries to investigate, going into crime scenes and his school witnesses to catch the thief. With the help of his grandfather (Ralph Waite), smart friend (Austin Rogers), and crush Laura (Emma Lockhart), Ace starts his success as a pet detective, using his brains and caustic improvisation skills to look for clues and save his mother, who is going through a long prison sentence after being blamed for the kidnappings.

Brian Orndorf stated in his review, “An “Ace Ventura” sequel without Jim Carrey is peanut butter without the jelly. It doesn’t take a pipe-and-sportcoated film historian to recognize the quality of such a needless endeavor is going to remain frighteningly low, yet “Ace 3” manages to trump even those horrid expectations with its determined lack of ingenuity or even elementary comedic competence. This is a terrible motion picture, scraping the bottom of the barrel out of sheer laziness while the previous two pictures challenged the audience with a broad parade of farcical eccentricity and brazen displays of comic mischief. The earlier installments were certainly obnoxious, but they swung for the fences; the movies pushed the boundaries of inspired wackiness, led by Carrey’s insatiable appetite for elastic PG-13 madness. Handing the role over to a pudgy, thick-tongued 14-year-old kid doesn’t make any sense.”

Even though Flitter has so much New Jersey energy, his Carrey impersonation leaves a lot to be worked on. Orndorf said, “Ace 3” is far too dependent on Flitter’s fixation with his punchlines, as director David Mickey Evans rests a majority of the humor on the youngster’s shoulders, assuming Carrey callbacks and flatulence jokes are enough to fill a 90 minute family film. With a raspy delivery and stubby physical appearance, Flitter is a total failure as the second coming of Ace, with every last one of his lines dropping out of his mouth with all the grace of an anvil. Granted, “Ace 3” is aimed toward the forgiving elementary school set, with the film showcasing lunchroom antics, state-of-the-art gummy worm tracking systems, a conceited teen villain (Reed Alexander, in a pleasing performance of effeminate terror), a Heelys-influenced action sequence, and advanced iPod technology to keep the target demo involved. But even that isn’t enough to suffer through this sorry excuse for low-budget, cash-in absurdity that trades agreeable clowning for lethargic anal-blast pandering.”

Orndorf admitted, “While I certainly enjoyed the film’s use of the Universal Orlando theme parks as a backdrop to much of the story (it lends the film a sliver of personality it doesn’t otherwise own), the rest of “Ace Ventura Jr.: Pet Detective” is a loathsome, exceedingly unfunny continuation of a once rewarding film series. Case in point: the movie trots out the moldy “don’t tase me, bro!” line twice for jesting punctuation. Twice.” I would just like to say that the film had four writers, and there’s a look at the torture this film has.

In the end, this movie is just a pain to sit through. As I already mentioned, I enjoyed the first two movies a lot and I still think they are funny to this day, as they are two of my favorite comedies and two of my favorite Jim Carrey movies. However, to make a third movie, which is direct-to-video and doesn’t have Jim Carrey in it, you know that is going to spell disaster. Just watch the first two movies and never bother with the direct-to-video movie. You will regret it as I did.

Check in next week to see the next classic Jim Carrey movie that had a sequel he didn’t star in, in “Jim Carrey not in Sequels Month.”