Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls
Many times, a good sequel is the result of being a mere extension of the original concept and / or main character as in this case the title role, an insanely over the top animal lover who not only worked as a detective specializing in cases involving animals, but whom also possessed an abnormal, ridiculously obnoxious personality towards his fellow humans which is predominantly based on his own contempt for them. It was a role that Jim Carrey played to perfection in the 1994 original, working himself into such a crazed frenzy with his brilliant adlibbing and physical contortions that the film became a sleeper smash hit and cemented Carrey’s position on the Hollywood A list. There was just one problem: Carrey had signed a contract that included a clause guaranteeing that he appear in a sequel SHOULD one actually be made (and admittedly it was not a definite at that time). After the box office success and immediate placement of the Ace character into the pop culture lexicon of the time, the producers activated the sequel clause almost immediately, a development that Carrey fought tooth and nail since he wanted to move on to other projects and characters. Fortunately for him, his salary was still negotiable and so for a $15 million payday (which was half of an overall $30 million budget), Carrey reluctantly reported to set and threw himself completely into the wackiness of Ace for what he knew would be the LAST time and even then there were problems left and right as Carrey managed to use up all of his contractual sick leave which extended the production shoot and even when he was on set he was constantly fighting with the director and having tensions with much of the supporting cast as well. Yet the movie still turned out surprisingly well, a display of Jim Carrey just not giving a shit and doing every possible bit of business he must have felt like doing in front of a camera, only this time without the solid supporting cast from the first film to play off of him, relying instead on a virtual bunch of nobodies (save for Bob Gunton from Shawshank Redemption in an extended cameo) who wind up becoming completely overwhelmed onscreen having to deal with Carrey’s insanity while otherwise utterly failing to match his comedic inventiveness. Also missing is the cool and relevant setting of Miami from the first film with its Super Bowl atmosphere which is replaced here by having the story take place in deepest, darkest Africa (although most of it was really filmed in South Carolina), a situation that required portraying Ace interacting with native African tribes, a crude depiction that set off Carrey’s PC sensibilities and later led to him remarking he was surprised that the movie didn’t wind up being banned. The whole shebang opens with an elaborate parody of the infamous opening scene of Cliffhanger as Ace scales a mountain to rescue a trapped raccoon only to accidentally drop him to his death. This is NOT funny at all, mostly because 1) depicting the death of an animal in a humorous way has never worked and 2) the same bit ironically was far funnier in Cliffhanger itself mostly from the way that the hiker’s death was at least partly caused by Stallone’s character hotshotting the rescue attempt along with the laughing and smiling reaction to the horrific event by the Ralph Waite character. Afterwards, Ace is a broken man and thus he retreats to a monastery before being approached by an emissary (Ian McNeice, threatening to sweat out a whole pituitary gland by the film’s end) with a proposition to come out to a fictional African nation in order to recover a sacred bat that has been stolen from its ceremonial place of honor of which the consequences could result in a nationwide tribal war. Ventura accepts the offer and comes on out, meeting the guy who hired him who is already the obvious culprit since the hiring itself is just a ruse to make it appear as if he did everything he could to prevent a situation that he himself would actually profit from. Now with the plot dynamics out of the way (except the fact that bats are the only animals whom Ace does NOT like, an irony given that Carrey was a former Batman villain in his own right), the only thing left to discuss is Carrey’s own crazed performance while in the Ventura vibe, spouting random pop culture references (the Shatner bit here is better than it was in the first film) and some incredibly manic moments of physical schtick which it seems that only Carrey could have possibly pulled off onscreen in order to draw laughs. One highlight of him nearly asphyxiating inside a dummy rhino is so outlandish that it almost becomes by itself worth the price of admission. There’s also a fight scene between Ace and one of the natives (Carrey’s former In Living Color castmate Tommy Davidson) where Carrey gets the physical slapstick fine tuned to a tee along with bits like having Ace get shot with poison darts (and getting progressively more and more numb as he goes along) and a confrontation with a snooty, animal fur loving couple where Ace makes the husband out to be a dead ringer for the Monopoly guy before slinging him over his shoulder and prancing around like he’s a dead animal himself. These moments work for the most part (some monumentally so) because they showcase Carrey at his most unfiltered and unhinged, no doubt because he was given that free reign to just go crazy with his own ideas even if they sidetrack the storyline or otherwise go completely off the rails so that Ace Ventura can act like what he is, an overgrown kid who nonetheless possesses a lifeforce so profound that he seems so much more maniacally alive than anybody else in the room all the way to the point that he becomes a virtual cartoon character who can handily survive any kind of a catastrophic attack that might befall him (a trait that he shares with Peter Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau) all while successfully straddling the PG-13 line that allows these films to be seen and enjoyed by kids who love the goofy humor aspects without depending on an endless string of profanity. This would be the end for the Ace Ventura franchise except for an awful spinoff (Ace Ventura Jr.) featuring an annoying kid actor doing a terrible impersonation of the comedy genius whom we see here. Carrey would get numerous offers over the years to return to the role, refusing all of them while even admitting that he regretted making Part 2, but the value here is as a supplementary piece to the classic original, recycling specific bits such as “like a glove” and “looooser” and adding newer, even crazier moments that keeps the viewer fully invested in following this wild maniac of a lovable main character…
8/10