Director: Chuck Russell
Cast: Jim Carrey, Peter Riegert, Peter Greene, Cameron Diaz
Have I Seen It Before: You don’t have your tenth birthday in 1994 and somehow avoid the film. This is going to seem like a strange idea, but it was only after re-watching it recently that it dawned on me just how much I must have watched this one back in the day. Individual moments--even including slight instances of behavior—tweaked a memory.
Did I Like It: And yet it’s been years, probably even decades since the last time I watched the film. Why? I think I made the decision at some point that of all of Carrey’s films in the first decade or so of his bona fide movie stardom, it wasn’t nearly as funny (even in an adolescent way) as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)*, or Dumb and Dumber (1995).
But there’s more to the film than that, at least nominally, as the last half hour of the film is so standard I think I suddenly remembered why I got to a point where I found the film underwhelming. If you can get over the fact that CGI ages worse than new-off-the-lot cars, there’s an impressively credible quality of a cartoon come to life in Carrey’s performance, made all the more impressive by the handful of shots where he had to stop moving around for the pyrotechnics around him to work properly. All of the highlights of his career, especially the early years, might make one think that he was going through prolonged manic episodes barely captured by film, but it’s hard to ignore here that Carrey is a more finely-tuned machine than he generally gets credit.
I was also oddly charmed by the plot of the movie of all things. It might be an obvious change to have the spunky reporter (Amy Yasbeck) be the morally bankrupt betrayer, and the vamp (Diaz) has the heart of gold. On the topic of Diaz, Carrey might have to take a bit of a backseat to his leading lady, as she enters filmdom here with more charisma (and I do mean charisma) than reels of ogling could ever hope to obscure. There were probably any number of attractive actresses who could have been cast in the role, but few would have been able to make a career out of it.
*And I’m not sure anyone—regardless of what they feel about the modern world—can watch Ace Ventura and not feel a little weirdly nauseous about the whole prospect.