Jim Carrey is one of the most gifted comedic actors of all time with some really funny performances in movies like 'Liar Liar" and "Bruce Almighty" and this movie is no exception and is a perfect vehicle for his wild and manic screen persona. Carrey plays a bank clerk named Stanley Ipkiss who lives alone in his apartment with his little Jack Russell Terrier Milo who is probably one of the smartest and most clever dogs we'll ever see in the movies. One day on the job he is talking with his best friend Charlie (Richard Jeni) who also happens to be his co-worker when suddenly a blonde bombshell by the name of Tina Carlyle (Cameron Diaz in her debut movie role) who wants to make an account while flirting with Stanley at the same time but is really using the flirtation as a distraction because she's really there to retrieve information from the bank with a hidden camera in her purse and relay it to her boss/boyfriend Dorian Tyrell (Peter Greene) who is planning a robbery of the bank. Later that night Ipkiss is standing on the edge of a bridge and suddenly sees an odd looking mask with a bunch of garbage around it which makes it look like a person has risen from the water, and being the good samaritan that he is thinks someone is in trouble and tries to help only to realize that it's a bunch of garbage and takes the mask with him back to his apartment. He then tries on the mask and it makes him swirl like a tornado in the midwest around his apartment and the mask makes him do all sorts of crazy things throughout the movie, and Ipkiss is always questioned about the mask character by a reporter named Peggy (Amy Yasbeck) and a police Lieutenant named Kellaway (Peter Riegert) who is always on Ipkiss's tail. The movie is very funny and the special effects make the movie a whole lot funnier while aslo having very good action sequences, but the movie's real focus is the relationship between Carrey's and Diaz's characters with their excellent chemistry together. This movie makes me even more eager to see Jim Carrey in more dramatic parts after watching a movie that sometimes loses its footing a little but is injected with life everytime Carrey is in any scene in this movie.
Review of The Mask
