688. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)

Starring: Jim Carrey, Courteney Cox, Sean Young

Director: Tom Shadyac

Running Time: 86 mins

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is an American film about a loony pet detective who is hired to investigate the kidnapping of the Miami Dolphins’ dolphin mascot, and in the process, he becomes part of an investigation of a much bigger crime.

I think that the main thing to say about this film is that if you don’t like Jim Carrey in most of his stuff, you definitely won’t like him in this. His performance is, while initially funny, ultimately insufferable, and despite this film having quite an interesting and entertaining story, it’s a bit tough to enjoy it when you’re being so annoyed.

I understand perfectly well that the whole point of the character of Ace Ventura is to be as goofy and irritating as possible, and I found it very funny for the first half or so of the film. However, when you get accustomed to the fact that Ace is so wacky, its effect starts to wear off a bit, and by the end of the film, you’ve had the same joke thrown at you so much that is just frustrating, but I still think that Jim Carrey does a fantastic job as the Pet Detective.

Meanwhile, I wasn’t laughing so much about the individual jokes throughout this film. Like our main character, a lot of the jokes aren’t particularly intelligent and are pretty similar all the way through, and while I do enjoy the odd idiotic joke-filled film, it just felt a little bit too repetitive.

Despite those issues, though, I really enjoyed the story. Not only is it a good, fun plot, but it’s actually very interesting and very unpredictable, with the same sort of mystery as any Bond film or Mission Impossible movie, and by that I was genuinely impressed, and I’m sure that if they just toned down the comedy a couple of notches, this could be a really good film.

So, overall, this gets a 7.0, because despite its irritating and repetitive nature, its story was a lot of fun.