ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE
(Contains spoilers and a trigger warning given the plot twist of the film)
We’ve all aged considerably in 24 years. Some of us weren’t alive back then. Some of us were but aren’t now. A lot can happen in 24 years. Germany went from Stresemann, through the fall of Weimar, the rise of Hitler, Nazism, WW2, the fall of Nazism, entry into the ECSC, winning the World Cup, and the economic miracle of the 50s inside 24 years. Ace Ventura: Weimar Politician would have been incredibly dated by 1954, so why is it surprise that our Ace Ventura is horribly dated now?
At the time, I thought this was hilarious. At the time, I was 8, and Jim Carrey’s gurn was comedic gold. In the cold light of day it isn’t hard to see an actor faffing around for nearly an entire film and getting paid for it. Courtney Cox, as in the similarly dated Friends the best thing in this, tries her best but seems similarly bored with the material. Carrey allegedly wasn’t bored, he just had no restraint on his behaviour and this is Prime Unrestrained Carrey, proving why he needed a strong hand on his shoulder to entice far better performances. Jim Carrey IS a good actor, but you wouldn’t know it from this or 90% of Batman Forever, to pick two examples.
There are good bits. “Assholes are closer than they appear” is sound life advice, and the moment when Ace explains why a suspected suicide had to be murder is straight out of Columbo. Courtney Cox does her best to lift a lot of show don’t tell material given her way, and Dan Marino is a hoot sending himself up (now there is a man clearly enjoying himself). Also, the scenes of Ace trying to discover which Superbowl ring is missing a ruby raises a few chuckles.
What doesn’t raise those chuckles is twofold. For one thing, Ventura’s attempts to fake mental illness (by being Jim Carrey) and the doctors being conned by it is… rather icky, to say the least. But then we have the reveal that the villain is a transgendered sex abuser and murderer. It’s a spoof of The Crying Game, apparently, that well known “comedy”.
Even by 1994 this reveal seemed dated: after outrage from the LGBT community over Silence of the Lambs, Jonathan Demme went onto make Philadelphia as an attempted mea culpa. [I am unable to say if that works, in the same way that, not being Jewish, I cannot say if Our Mutual Friend is an acceptable apology for Oliver Twist.) Yet here we have “that woman’s a man” as punchline, the idea everyone is sickened by it, that the killer deliberately uses that to blackmail, manipulate and harass others (who wrote this? The Daily Mail?) and that naturally the killer is implied bisexual too, because they’re all depraved, or something. If it was aging badly by 1994, it’s the equivalent of Ace Ventura: Weimar Politician making jokes about Nazi comb-overs and insistence on paperwork in 2018. (And "Nazi references are overkill" went out the moment countries started electing Mussolini fanboys.)
This film appears to have killed off Jim Carrey’s abilities at winning awards. Even brilliant performances like Man on the Moon weren’t even nominated for the Oscar after this film. That, in itself, is a personal tragedy. But a far greater tragedy is the fact that films like this helped to perpetuate persecution of the minority. And none of us eight year olds noticed it at the time, because when society was supposed to be educating, it was mocking.
(Contains spoilers and a trigger warning given the plot twist of the film)
We’ve all aged considerably in 24 years. Some of us weren’t alive back then. Some of us were but aren’t now. A lot can happen in 24 years. Germany went from Stresemann, through the fall of Weimar, the rise of Hitler, Nazism, WW2, the fall of Nazism, entry into the ECSC, winning the World Cup, and the economic miracle of the 50s inside 24 years. Ace Ventura: Weimar Politician would have been incredibly dated by 1954, so why is it surprise that our Ace Ventura is horribly dated now?
At the time, I thought this was hilarious. At the time, I was 8, and Jim Carrey’s gurn was comedic gold. In the cold light of day it isn’t hard to see an actor faffing around for nearly an entire film and getting paid for it. Courtney Cox, as in the similarly dated Friends the best thing in this, tries her best but seems similarly bored with the material. Carrey allegedly wasn’t bored, he just had no restraint on his behaviour and this is Prime Unrestrained Carrey, proving why he needed a strong hand on his shoulder to entice far better performances. Jim Carrey IS a good actor, but you wouldn’t know it from this or 90% of Batman Forever, to pick two examples.
There are good bits. “Assholes are closer than they appear” is sound life advice, and the moment when Ace explains why a suspected suicide had to be murder is straight out of Columbo. Courtney Cox does her best to lift a lot of show don’t tell material given her way, and Dan Marino is a hoot sending himself up (now there is a man clearly enjoying himself). Also, the scenes of Ace trying to discover which Superbowl ring is missing a ruby raises a few chuckles.
What doesn’t raise those chuckles is twofold. For one thing, Ventura’s attempts to fake mental illness (by being Jim Carrey) and the doctors being conned by it is… rather icky, to say the least. But then we have the reveal that the villain is a transgendered sex abuser and murderer. It’s a spoof of The Crying Game, apparently, that well known “comedy”.
Even by 1994 this reveal seemed dated: after outrage from the LGBT community over Silence of the Lambs, Jonathan Demme went onto make Philadelphia as an attempted mea culpa. [I am unable to say if that works, in the same way that, not being Jewish, I cannot say if Our Mutual Friend is an acceptable apology for Oliver Twist.) Yet here we have “that woman’s a man” as punchline, the idea everyone is sickened by it, that the killer deliberately uses that to blackmail, manipulate and harass others (who wrote this? The Daily Mail?) and that naturally the killer is implied bisexual too, because they’re all depraved, or something. If it was aging badly by 1994, it’s the equivalent of Ace Ventura: Weimar Politician making jokes about Nazi comb-overs and insistence on paperwork in 2018. (And "Nazi references are overkill" went out the moment countries started electing Mussolini fanboys.)
This film appears to have killed off Jim Carrey’s abilities at winning awards. Even brilliant performances like Man on the Moon weren’t even nominated for the Oscar after this film. That, in itself, is a personal tragedy. But a far greater tragedy is the fact that films like this helped to perpetuate persecution of the minority. And none of us eight year olds noticed it at the time, because when society was supposed to be educating, it was mocking.
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