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A Preening Idiot in Africa

Ace Ventura 2: When Nature Calls, starring Jim Carrey; directed by Steve Oedekerk

Jim Carrey is a brilliant and original talent. Love him or hate him, you have to admit that there is no one else in movies quite like him. He pulls demonically inspired slapstick right out of his subconscious, doing with his body what Robin Williams does with words, raising seat-of-the-pants improvisation to the level of cosmic design. But it may be that film is not the ideal medium for his abrasively demented genius. Carrey's last three movies have trapped him in derivative situations so that--like Williams, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy , and a handful of other unique talents--he must concentrate much of his energy on either defying or subverting the narrative around him. Instead of soaring, he keeps getting pulled down to earth.

32

This sequel to Ace Ventura, Pet Detective can't really be called a disappointment. After all, it seems unlikely that anybody will see it with particularly high expectations. Still, it isn't interesting enough to be worth your time--or Jim Carrey's time, for that matter. It sends our strutting, mugging, preening idiot hero to Africa, where he must rescue a kidnapped white bat whose existence keeps two primitive tribes from destroying each other. Though the atrocious one-liners and excremental sight gags are politically incorrect in the extreme, the film is so flat and uninteresting that it is tough to rouse yourself into taking offense. (The scenes of Ace interacting with tribespeople has all the sensitivity of one of those old Warner Brothers cartoons where stereotypically large-lipped pygmies cook Bugs Bunny in a pot.)

What I enjoyed about The Mask and Dumb and Dumber was the inclusion of other talented actors Carrey could interact with. In Ace Ventura, Pet Detective and its sequel, he's really the only character; everybody else exists merely to provide fodder for his psychedelic riffing. There are a couple of gags sick enough to do Peter Sellers proud--including the opening parody of Cliffhanger, in which a chirping raccoon plunges to its death in the Alps, and a bit involving a man in a rhino suit that's far too obscene to describe here. But these moments aren't enough to mitigate the feeling that you're watching a great talent make big money for doing things that are second nature to him. Can a man made of rubber atrophy? So far, the answer seems to be yes. --Matt Zoller Seitz

(Rated PG-13 for language, cartoon violence, and potty humor.)



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