Review: Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls

The eccentric idiot pet detective Ace Ventura (Jim Carrey, who may or may not have been ill during filming) is back. After a failed rescue of a raccoon stuck on a mountain, a distraught Ace joins a Tibetan monastery to find himself again. A visit from a missionary (Ian McNeice) leads Ace back to being a pet detective, this time in search of a sacred white bat belonging to a particular African tribe. Simon Callow plays a snooty consul and avid trophy hunter, Sophie Okonedo plays a tribeswoman, the late Bob Gunton plays a safari park owner, and Kiwi Bruce Spence plays a supposedly Australian henchman/hunter.

 

The original “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” didn’t hold up to recent revisiting for me, but to be frank I loathed this 1995 follow-up from writer-director Steve Oedekerk (“Nothing to Lose”, “Kung Pow: Enter the Fist”) when it first came out. I vividly remember seeing the trailer far too many times in the seemingly arduously drawn-out build-up to its release and recognising a turd the first time just from that trailer. And remember, especially back then, trailers gave you all the best bits. Does anyone remember the trailer to “Lightning Jack”? (The Paul Hogan flop also had a too drawn-out ad campaign) The only halfway decent bits in that tepid film were in that trailer. Looking at it again from a 2021 perspective the film doesn’t get any better. It might be even worse than I remembered.

 

The best bit is the opening “Cliffhanger” parody involving Ace Ventura trying to rescue a raccoon (!) from a mountain cliff (!). Even that bit is just cute and clever, not laugh-out-loud funny (I’m almost certain it was in the trailer, too). The rest is Carrey in desperate comedian ‘anything for a laugh’ mode, but with dreadful material. “The Mask” it ain’t, it’s not even up to the standard of “Dumb and Dumber” (where Jeff Daniels was funnier), though since I’m the guy willing to defend “The Cable Guy”, perhaps you should just see it and make up your own mind, if you haven’t viewed this sequel already.

 

How desperate is this film? The opening credits aren’t even over and Carrey is regurgitating food into a bird’s mouth during a ridiculously unconvincing blue-screened mountain climb. It’s a sign of the gross and desperate things to come. As I found revisiting the first film (which I rather enjoyed when I was 14, I will admit), Carrey is immediately and consistently irritating in the title role. Perhaps even more than last time, because here you can tell he’s basically phoning things in by (pun intended) regurgitating his schtick from the first film. I get it, he’s playing the same character, but it clearly doesn’t have the mileage to run through two films, and expanding the scope to Africa and populating the cast with several familiar faces from the UK isn’t enough of a difference.

 

Carrey is clearly an enormous comedic talent, you only need watch “In Living Colour” or “The Mask” for that. He’s even a decent dramatic actor from time to time. His best film remains “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, but he was solid in “Man on the Moon” and “The Truman Show”, all three mixing comedy and drama and having some legit ambition. However, he also clearly needs a short leash and a strong director who isn’t eager to indulge Carrey’s every comic whim. Mr. Oedekerk clearly ain’t that guy, and “Batman Forever” helmsman Joel Schumacher was clearly too occupied looking at bat nipples and cod pieces to notice Carrey’s fatuous mugging in that film. Carrey hadn’t yet learned that less is more, and he runs riot here with tireless schtick after tireless schtick. At least in “The Mask” the film was designed to be a live-action cartoon, so Carrey’s overly indulgent madcap performance was the perfect fit. Here he just looks like he’s begging you to laugh, it’s all schtick all of the time. I barely cracked a smile, and the mystery plot is boring and half-arsed too. You’d probably have to be Carrey’s #1 fan or a very young child to get any amusement out of this. It’s exhaustive after 10 minutes, painful after 20. The animals are lovely, but a pretty rock-solid character actor cast is appallingly wasted. Sophie Okonedo is sweet, but plays a pretty rank cultural stereotype. Bob Gunton deserves to be called out in particular. He’s an average at best actor, but whatever accent he’s trying for here (Irish? Scottish? Seth Effriken?) he misses wider than Dick Van Dyke in “Mary Poppins”. Also, Oedekerk doesn’t even try to make this realistic even within its own cartoon-y world, one minute Ace is horrified by the sight of animal trophies, next minute he’s eating a zebra carcass with a pride of lions. Anything for a gross-out laugh, hey guys? Nah, it’s called shameless desperation from a couple of guys (best friends at the time) who know they’re just trying to make money and don’t care to provide quality for their audience (though, interestingly Carrey apparently didn’t like making the film much, albeit mostly due to the cultural stereotypes).

 

Disgusting ‘fake rhino anus’ scene aside, this tired, schtick-y comedy might prove a passable amusement for very small children. Anyone over the age of 7 or with an at least average IQ will find it tired, desperate, irritating, and crushingly dull. It’s basically a second-rate repeat of all of the schtick from the first film, only set on a different continent. What a waste of all those reliable character actors and future Oscar-nominee Sophie Okonedo! Terrible film, an ego-fed star running riot without a decent script or strong director. It sure made a lot of money at the box-office, though.

 

Rating: D