Ace Ventura: Pet Detective

Released in 1994, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is little more than the window dressing of a plot to allow Jim Carrey to go crazy on film for 86 minutes. The film was heavily rewritten after Carrey was cast and much of the scenes were improvised on set to take advantage of Carrey's humor and growing popularity. Much like his role in Batman Forever, Carrey is unleashed where films like The Mask, The Truman Show, and Dumb and Dumber made more effort to fit his style into the larger context of the film.

I enjoyed the film when it was released, both for some of the more memorable gags and for its incorporation of Dan Marino and the Miami Dolphins into the plot. That said, even on that initial viewing the film felt uneven as hell and, not surprisingly, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective hasn't aged well (particularly the transphobic elements of the script on which the mystery of the missing dolphin relies).

The plot involves Carrey starring as a pet detective looking into the theft of the Dolphins' mascot weeks before the Super Bowl. Courtney Cox plays the publicist who hires Ace and the gets dragged into his zaniness and Sean Young plays the disapproving Police Lieutenant Lois Einhorn with a secret past tied to the Dolphins' past leading to the theft of the mascot.

Very much a product of its times, it wouldn't be on the top of my list of Carrey films to revisit. However, the film is nevertheless a snapshot of Carrey on his rise that certainly offers plenty of opportunities for him to go for broke in every scene (much like several of the early films of Robin Williams which also struggled to reign the comedic performer whose big laughs often came from chaotic improvisation that didn't always fit into the constrains of a feature film). The new edition includes both 4K and Blu-ray versions of the movie, audio commentary from director Tom Shadyac, and the film's trailer.

• Title: Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
• IMDb: link