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+ Best Movie of the Year
+ Best American Movie of the Year + Best Animal Movie of the Year + Breakthrough of the Year: Jim Carrey + Best Comedy of the Year + Best Debut of the Year + Most Deserved Hit of the Year + Best Florida Movie of the Year + Best Huge Hit Movie of the Year + Best Poster of the Year + Most Underrated Movie of the Year
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| Star Jim Carrey brazenly flashing his card, in ridonkulous garbs, on the iconic poster for Tom Shadyac's Ace Ventura: Pet Detective |
When US football team the Miami Dolphins' mascot, a real dolphin, gets kidnapped shortly before the team's Super Bowl finale, pet detective Ace Ventura is put on the case, and he works it with zeal and his special brand of not exactly self-effacing charm.
Jim Carrey (Kids (2014, short)) shines as a jet-fueled star in his first lead role as the comic genius that he is. There simply isn't a single bad or semi-bad scene in Virginian master co-writer/director Tom Shadyac's (Liar Liar (1997)) overwrought, tight goofball-comedy Ace Ventura, which is his debut. The film radiates playful, light-hearted inventiveness in its use of music, costumes, hair design and storyline, which is funny on its own and hysterically funny with Carrey's performance plastered all over it. Shadyac wrote the script with Carrey and Jack Bernstein (Monk (2006-09)).
He has once shared that he found during a dinner with Anthony Hopkins that he had played Hannibal Lector much like Carrey had played Ventura: By moving like an animal. (In Hopkins' case, it had been like a reptile.) And if you've seen Ace Ventura, you'll probably be able to guess that in Carrey's case, he moved like a bird. (Thank God fellow Canadian Rick Moranis turned down the part as Ventura, so that Carrey got the offer; Moranis would surely never have gotten these moves out.)
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is a comedy classic, and together with The Cable Guy (1996), it is arguably Carrey's funniest movie.
Related posts:
The inevitable sequel: Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995) or, Nuts in Africa
Tom Shadyac: 2007 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Evan Almighty (2007) - Shadyac's monumentally miscalculated sequel/professional gravestone (hope not)
Bruce Almighty (2003) - Carrey makes laughter in well-made what-if-you-were-God-comedy
1994 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
Top 10: Best comedies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 15 mil. $
Box office: 107.2 mil. $
= Huge hit (returned 7.14 times its cost)
[Ace Ventura: Pet Detective was released 4 February (USA) and runs 86 minutes. Moranis was offered the part but turned it down; Whoopi Goldberg, Judd Nelson and Alan Rickman were then considered, before the producers noticed Carrey and cast him. Shooting took place in Florida, including Miami, from May - July 1993. The film opened #1 to a 12.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 5 weeks in the top 5, of which another 2 were as #1, (#1-#2-#2-#1-#3), and grossed 72.2 mil. $ (67.4 % of the total gross). Roger Ebert gave the film a 1/4 star review, translating to 6 notches lower than this one. Carrey in 1994 went from being virtually unknown to becoming the world's #2 box office star, behind Tom Hanks, as his 3 1994 movies Ace Ventura, The Mask and Dumb and Dumber grossed 550 mil. $. Steve Oederkerk made the direct sequel, the very successful but mediocre Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995). A 1995-00 animated TV-series and a 2009 direct-to-video spin-off sequel have been made, both without involvement from any of the principals. Shadyac returned with The Nutty Professor (1996). Carrey returned in The Mask (1994). Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is rotten at 47 % with a 4.55/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective?
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