The SmarK DVD Rant for The Ace Ventura Collection

The Film

I’m hoping you know the amazing story behind this movie, but if not…well, it’s not much of a story anyway. Jim Carrey is a struggling comedian who stars as the token white guy on Fox’s In Living Color, building an underground following with goofy physical comedy and over-the-top "acting". So expecting nothing, a couple of movie studios sign him to minor B-level projects, including a comic book adaptation of The Mask and a direct-to-video quality script about a pet detective. $200 million domestic later and Jim Carrey is a household name and the first $20 million man in Hollywood.

And yeah, he’s gone on to bigger and better projects, and yeah, I loved Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind like my own child, but really what people initially put down their hard-earned ticket money to see was Jim Carrey acting like a moron and spewing catchphrases. Critics may have hated the Ace Ventura franchise, but they hated The Number 23 even more and for good reason. Sometimes laughing is GOOD.

The first movie, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, definitely could have been a disaster (or worse, a National Lampoon direct to video "comedy") with anyone else but Carrey in the lead role. The pitch reads like a bad SNL skit and I still don’t know how it got green-lit by the studio. Plot, you say? Ace Ventura rescues lost pets for minimal amounts of money, but gets his big break when the Miami Dolphins’ mascot is kidnapped by an embittered ex-teammate, requiring detective skills that only he can provide. Doesn’t read very funny, but the true comedy comes from putting Carrey into a standard situation and letting him improvise like crazy, and that’s why the movie works against all odds and is still hilarious today. Carrey bursts into the movie like a force of nature, taking a simple setup like playing a delivery man who carries a fragile package with little regard for its contents, and getting 10 or 12 big laughs out of it even long after the idea of the broken glass in the package should cease to be funny. Investigating the empty dolphin tank is dull, but Carrey doing dead-on Star Trek parodies and hamming it up for the camera somehow pulls off the scene. Back before anyone knew who he was, this was fairly anarchic stuff, as you just never knew where the laugh was going to come from next. And Jim is a guy who used to be willing to do ANYTHING for a laugh, up to and including talking out of his own butt. Yeah, the movie kind of drags if you’re the type of person who cares about character development or good acting or plot, but director Tom Shadyac is smart enough to focus everything on setting up Carrey with softball pitches and letting him swing for the fences. And indeed, by the end of the year obnoxious teenagers everywhere were annoying their parents with "Allrighty then!" and "Reeee-hee-hee-hee-lly" and every other silly catchphrase from the movie.

As noted, I never saw the sequel in theaters, but when I watched it on DVD I was pretty shocked to find that I liked Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls even more than the original! This was kind of weird because it had "cash in sequel" written all over it, but somehow taking Ace out of his Florida environment and putting him in Africa makes the formula feel fresh and funny all over again, and I laughed, a lot, at stuff that again wouldn’t normally work, but which Carrey milks a laugh out of by sheer force of willpower. The biggest laugh in the movie doesn’t even sound that funny on paper — Ventura tracks a suspect in a mechanical rhino, but gets overheated and trapped inside, requiring him to escape naked out of the rear end. And yet he’s able to take it so far over the top and sell every bit of physical comedy he can squeeze into the sequence until you can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it. Unfortunately taking the character to his natural excesses not only produces the funniest sequences (like the Circle of Death showdown) but also the scenes where any rational human being would haul off and punch him in the face if it was real life (like the dinner party, which is right out of the Three Stooges playbook). I think the ultimate test for a movie as goofy as this one is whether or not the laughs outnumbered the slow spots, and given that I laughed a LOT during the course of this one, I’d call it a winner. And whereas Pet Detective came across as an extended improv class at times, When Nature Calls actually looks and feels like a real movie thanks to the journeyman work of Steve Odekerk, previously known for less-than-epic comedies like the Thumb Wars movies and Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. One thing you can say is that he knows what’s funny, though. And being charged with crafting a plot around Jim Carrey’s antics is a tougher task than it sounds like, so good on him.

Finally, the set includes a disc with three bonus episodes of the animated series of Ace Ventura, which is, shall we say, less successful at capturing the manic energy of Jim Carrey and serves more to regurgitate the catchphrases for kids too young to get into the original movie. The voice actor imitating him does an admirable job of pulling off the character, but the silly plots like Ace tracking Santa’s kidnapped reindeer just can’t sustain the momentum of the original movies. Still, it’s a nice bonus for curiosity sake, since I didn’t even know about the cartoon version of the show. (Ratings: ***1/2 for Pet Detective, **** for When Nature Calls, *1/2 for the animated series)

Video & Audio

Here’s another pleasant surprise, as both movies are not only restored to their original theatrical widescreen aspect (1.85:1 for Pet Detective and 2.35:1 for When Nature Calls), but Warner has done a pretty spectacular job of cleaning up the prints, to the point where you’d think both movies were just released this year instead of nearly 15 years ago now. In particular the second movie features lush colors in the jungles of Africa and good detail. The first movie, shot on a much smaller budget, looks closer to a video rather than a film, but given the crappy version that was on DVD for years before this, I have few complaints. The cartoon is what it is, standard full screen and cheaply transferred, but with bright colors. (Ratings: ***1/2 for P.D., **** for W.N.C., ** for the animate series)

Even better, the soundtrack on the movies has not only been remastered into Dolby 5.1, but there’s even an unadvertised DTS soundtrack on each of the movies! And once again, time to heap praise on When Nature Calls, because it features a surprisingly robust soundtrack for a light comedy. Jungle drums really rock the subwoofer at times, and during the action sequences (like Ace’s parking demonstration) there’s some good action in the surrounds. Best of all, the center channel is clear and mixed well to the front, just the way I like it. There’s actually some good demo sequences on this one. (Ratings: *** for P.D., **** for W.N.C., ** for the animated series)

Bonus Features

Both movies are understandably light on features given the price point, although the first movie features a commentary track with director Tom Shadyac and the trailers, and the second movie features the trailers and not much else. For under $10, what do you expect? (Rating: ** overall)

The Pulse

For a budget "double feature" release, this is a pretty good deal, featuring a fresh transfer of two classic Jim Carrey comedies, back when he was just concerned with being funny and not being a movie star. Definitely worth a purchase for fans of the franchise.