I was a wee child when I saw this movie for the first time and I had never seen anything like it before. For my younger self this movie was the bomb. For adult me, it does not quite hold up as much.
On the surface, the movie is a fun spin on the Film Noir detective genre. Even if we are more inclined to remember the more wacky scenes, I have always liked the more investigative segments. Like the one where Ace gets punched in the face in order to see if the ring has all its gems or how he demonstrates the victim could not have been heard from the inside of the apartment. It is definitively in a cartoonish tone, but it sorta plays in the same way a Hercule Poirot or Columbo reveal would.
The movie is unabashedly dumb, but it has these tiny clever sparks, which makes it interesting for me. The movie is dumb, not in a bad way. It is in the same sense as Dumb and Dumber or any pre-2000 comedy. Because, it's geared towards (younger) children and it relies mainly on visual gags and of course Jim Carrey's goofy facial expressions. It borrows heavily from cartoons and there is an understated homage to pre-war Looney Tunes, very much like in The Mask. It doesn't really work, but it is rather unique. Yet, it is interesting to note that before the Apatow revolution, this what American comedies where. Where the plot and characters were secondary to the tone and the slapstick comedy.
All this, puts the entire movie on Jim Carrey's shoulders. I like him, so therefore I enjoyed his antics, but if facial expressions are not you cup of tea: skip this movie. His performance is weirdly fascinating, and you're watching asking yourself what will he think of next. The sequence at the mental institution, where he mimics catching a football and then the slow-mo rewind is glorious!
American comedies have that tendency to rely on quantity over quality. Throwing it all at the wall and see what sticks. One thing that absolutely does not "stick" anymore is the whole 3rd act's transphobia.
This is bad for reasons too many to enumerate. I'll give three:
It does not take away too much from this film because the visual gags are its forte anyway. But, it is interesting to see what was acceptable in a mainstream comedy in the 90s. Thank God they also had Jim Carrey.
On the surface, the movie is a fun spin on the Film Noir detective genre. Even if we are more inclined to remember the more wacky scenes, I have always liked the more investigative segments. Like the one where Ace gets punched in the face in order to see if the ring has all its gems or how he demonstrates the victim could not have been heard from the inside of the apartment. It is definitively in a cartoonish tone, but it sorta plays in the same way a Hercule Poirot or Columbo reveal would.
The movie is unabashedly dumb, but it has these tiny clever sparks, which makes it interesting for me. The movie is dumb, not in a bad way. It is in the same sense as Dumb and Dumber or any pre-2000 comedy. Because, it's geared towards (younger) children and it relies mainly on visual gags and of course Jim Carrey's goofy facial expressions. It borrows heavily from cartoons and there is an understated homage to pre-war Looney Tunes, very much like in The Mask. It doesn't really work, but it is rather unique. Yet, it is interesting to note that before the Apatow revolution, this what American comedies where. Where the plot and characters were secondary to the tone and the slapstick comedy.
All this, puts the entire movie on Jim Carrey's shoulders. I like him, so therefore I enjoyed his antics, but if facial expressions are not you cup of tea: skip this movie. His performance is weirdly fascinating, and you're watching asking yourself what will he think of next. The sequence at the mental institution, where he mimics catching a football and then the slow-mo rewind is glorious!
American comedies have that tendency to rely on quantity over quality. Throwing it all at the wall and see what sticks. One thing that absolutely does not "stick" anymore is the whole 3rd act's transphobia.
This is bad for reasons too many to enumerate. I'll give three:
- It comes out of nowhere, it was not established nor foreshardowed earlier. It really feels like an extra joke, a tacked on one.
- It has only minor consequences plot-wise, the lieutenant does nothing to stop the investigation, nor does the relationship with Ace have any impact.
- It is so mean-spirited that my empathy almost went to the antagonist: he was so shaken by a minor mistake that it made him question his sexual identity entirely.
It does not take away too much from this film because the visual gags are its forte anyway. But, it is interesting to see what was acceptable in a mainstream comedy in the 90s. Thank God they also had Jim Carrey.