The Mask (1994) Review

I haven’t seen Jim Carrey’s The Mask (1994) in a while and figured since it’s on Tubi at the moment, I’d give it another shot. Quite honestly, I’ve been a little down on Jim Carrey’s movies as I frankly don’t find him that funny. Usually, there’s something else in his movies that might interest me and once again this was the case here.

Around the early to mid 90s, I would say there were various comic book style super hero type of movies they made that had this hybrid look between the cartoon (along the lines of a Tim Burton) and the old TV super heroes shows like a Batman. For myself, I never really cared for this style as it mostly alerted you to how ridiculous the film would become because of how the director would rely more on a cartoon style lens rather than realism.

The Mask falls into this category especially as you can see how more computer graphics were integrated here such as the main character’s heart pounding like the wolf cartoon character out his chest. While it looks decent enough, this style makes me feel bored as you have to expect a matching humor that’s similar to the old Looney Toons. Also, you would think Jim Carrey is a natural fit here as he has a very animated face and exaggerated moves that paradoxically allows him to be a real life cartoon figure.

Yet none of this works for me as I found the movie very exaggerated to the point where again I just felt bored waiting for a good joke to drop. In a way, this movie was more like a refined version of Jim Carrey’s other goofy caper, Once Bitten. Fortunately, The Mask isn’t as annoying mostly because his sidekick here is minimized and used sparingly for only crucial moments. But the plot could almost match in structure Once Bitten if you remove the specific flavors where you have Jim Carrey as a real handsome but awkward guy who for whatever reason cannot find love nor happiness and simply experiences a series of bad luck and other mishaps until he encounters his schtick to overcome his confidence issues. This movie even has its own dance routine.

But the similar structure makes me think that The Mask is more of a Jim Carrey vehicle to show off his antics than bothering to be an actual decent movie. The main villain here is drab and unremarkable with barely a single note that makes us despise him. There are two females, one posing as a red herring for the main character’s love interest that at the end suddenly turns on him without warning except with the blandest, shallowest and lamest excuse of, “I needed $50k for my condo.” What? It just comes out of nowhere. Sadly, the character uttering those words is played by Amy Yasbeck, whom I have a deep affection for and was the main reason I even bothered checking this movie out (because I didn’t recall her when I first saw it).

The other female is played by Cameron Diaz and this may have been the movie where I took notice of her. I can’t recall but she does look great here. Of course, she plays this lounge type of singer who had hooked up with the main villain before meeting Stanley Ipkiss (Jim Carrey) and finding some level of fondness for him. Yeah, it’s one of those one in a million bullshit scenarios where she still likes Stanley, despite the social awkwardness. But let’s face facts here: Stanley, despite all his ineptitude, is still a moderately successful banker and handsome white dude. So of course, she might find some attraction to him, which just makes me think how bullshit of a story this is.

Now, you might note that I haven’t really talked much about the plot unlike other movie reviews. I guess the issue for me here is that I hated it. It’s just bland and something you’d see in various super hero movies back then. It wasn’t a mess and they managed to get to a conclusion but all I could think of while watching this movie was just how goofy Jim Carrey is. And I know he was able to make money from his talent but the movie just overdoes it with him. For instance, when the “Mask” gets shot by the gangsters, he does the cartoon style exaggerated cough while one of the subordinate villains cries over the bad melodramatic acting. And I get that he’s playing a cartoon version of himself here but it’s too much at times and this was around when Jim Carrey was really peaking in his career.

Quite frankly, the real star of the show was the dog Milo, a Jack Russell Terrier. Milo was the absolutely the best thing about this movie and stole every scene he was in. The best line in movie was from Lieutenant Mitch Kellaway who witnessed Milo unlocking the vehicle and letting himself out and commenting, “Smart dog.” I’ve always had a fondness for Jack Russell Terriers (not as much as a Shetland Shepdog but that’s a different story) but this is the kind of movie that makes me wish I had my own house with a nice yard so I could own one of these guys.

But going back to the plot, I really can’t say much outside of it being a generic super hero type of deal so you can watch almost any super hero movie around that period and get a good sense of what this would be. And mostly it’s allowing Jim Carrey to do his thing and I guess it just doesn’t work for me. He’s not like Robin Williams where you just sit in wonder at the celerity of things the guy tosses out at random. It just feels unnatural and forced where he’s trying far too hard to be a cartoon because he’s got that exaggerated face. And once you see Jim Carrey do his thing, you’ve pretty much seen the rest.

The other major problem I have with this movie is that no one really questions just how outrageous of a situation any of this is. Like when the Mask pulls out the giant armaments, the villains just accept it and run. Or how this guy does some Looney Toons dance out of nowhere and gets everyone to join in. If the whole thing was a dream, then you can kinda accept it. But the fact that people’s responses made it seem like any of this was normal felt insulting

Now, I mentioned that Amy Yasbeck is the one reason why I decided to check out this movie again. Unfortunately, she just has such a small role in the scheme of things that I felt bad. I know there’s a deleted scene that shows her ill fate where she’s pressed into some newspaper as an ironic death (probably by the villain who apprehends the mask) so I’m glad they cut that.

At any rate, to me at least the main reason to watch this is for Milo. The rest of the movie feels forgettable these days.