After walking Kyle through the math it seems pretty straightforward: the sham R&P film is only one review away from not qualifying for BMT. “And so all we need is to somehow insert sexy mannequins into the film and it’ll be within your scope to review?” But Kyle shakes his head and explains that the film already has mannequins. “And they’re really quite striking,” he adds, sending a shiver up Jamie’s spine. The site has even already written a review. “So how was the movie?” asks Jamie. Kyle shakes his head and wrinkles his nose. Patrick throws up his hands. “So if you already wrote a bad review then how does that help us?” but Kyle shakes his head again and reiterates, “the mannequins… they were very striking.” Patrick feels bile in the back of his throat. They summarize: Kyle has a website (check), it reviewed the film (check), and they gave it a good review (check). “Cause of the extremely striking mannequins,” confirms Kyle. “The only problem,” he continues, “is that we don’t meet the eligibility requirements. Jamie and Patrick nod in understanding. It is pretty strict and obviously SMT isn’t getting 4 million hits a year, but Kyle is taken aback. “Of course we have 4 million hits a year… we have 4 million subscribers,” he says as Jamie’s mouth falls open in shock. “It’s mostly because one of our three reviewers isn’t qualified as an individual critic. Me and my brother Lyle are, but our other brother Miles isn’t because he’s only written for the site for a year.” So all they had to do was hack the planet and juke Miles’ stats? Kyle nods, “and I actually know an elite hacker. My son Niall, but… he’s a bit of a wild card.” That’s right! We are watching the sequel to the comedy classic The Mask that literally no one was asking for. A decade after the first film they jettisoned everything that people loved from the first one in order to make a film with a CGI dog/baby instead of Jim Carrey. Seems like a plan. Let’s go!
Son of the Mask (2005) – BMeTric: 92.8; Notability: 74
StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 0.0%; Notability: top 8.8%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 3.1% Higher Notability: The Island, Fantastic Four, Kingdom of Heaven, Domino, Bewitched, Be Cool, Chicken Little, Memoirs of a Geisha, xXx²: The Next Level, The Longest Yard; Lower RT: Alone in the Dark, BloodRayne, The Fog, Chaos, Supercross, Hate Crime, Yours, Mine & Ours; Notes: It is famous for a reason! One of the highest BMeTrics ever due to having 50K votes with a sub-3.0 (!) IMDb rating. Truly an astonishing feat, the lowest BMeTric of 2005.
Leonard Maltin – BOMB – Kennedy isn’t ready to be a father but conceives a baby anyway, wearing a supernatural mask. It, in turn, is coveted by a Norse god’s son (Cumming, in another of his leftover Paul Reubens roles). The god himself is played by Hoskins, in layers of makeup, and by this time the creaks are louder than anything in The Son of the Sheik. So-called sequel to The Mask (1994) is raucous without mercy, and burdened by a charmless cast; it has to plunder Chuck Jones’ cartoon One Froggy Evening to glean even a few good moments.
(Overly long review IMO (saved only by a late snippet semicolon). The review manages to completely undersell just how ridiculous this movie is and how famous it is as a legendary bad movie. I think this is Baby Geniuses level bad, and yet Leonard talks about it like it is a little kooky and unoriginal. No respect.)
Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKwtGHbpVDU/
(Oh man, they’re really showcasing the dancing baby and cartoon dog huh? Kind of amazing what they’ve done to The Mask. An abomination of a sequel for no good reason.)
Directors – Lawrence Guterman – (Known For: Cats & Dogs; BMT: Son of the Mask; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Director for Son of the Mask in 2006; Notes: Was a CGI wizard hired out of film school by Spielberg to help direct Dreamworks projects. Went to Harvard and MIT as well at times.)
Writers – Lance Khazei (written by) – (BMT: Son of the Mask; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Screenplay for Son of the Mask in 2006; Notes: Also went to Harvard which makes me think he might have known Guterman in some capacity prior to the film. Was a writer on the Chevy Chase show, and was nominated for a Daytime Emmy for the Great Minds Think For Themselves shorts.)
Actors – Jamie Kennedy – (Known For: Romeo + Juliet; Scream, Dead Poets Society; Enemy of the State; As Good as It Gets; Harold & Kumar Get the Munchies; Scream 2; Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back; Three Kings; Scream 3; Boiler Room; The Hungover Games; Bowfinger; Extreme Movie; Spinning Man; Roe v. Wade; Last Call; The Sand; Trick; Clockwatchers; Dr. Dolittle 2; Future BMT: Malibu’s Most Wanted; Kickin’ It Old Skool; Max Keeble’s Big Move; Good Deeds; Bait; Skin Deep; BMT: Son of the Mask; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Actor, and Worst Screen Couple for Son of the Mask in 2006; Notes: Allegedly helped his acting career by pretending to be his own agent. Dated Jennifer Love Hewitt in the late 2000s.)
Traylor Howard – (Known For: Me, Myself & Irene; Confessions of a Sexist Pig; Future BMT: Dirty Work; BMT: Son of the Mask; Notes: Probably most well known for her role as the assistant to Monk on the Emmy winning show Monk. I think she was the second assistant after Bitty Schram left the show.)
Alan Cumming – (Known For: Eyes Wide Shut; GoldenEye; X-Men 2; Spy Kids; Josie and the Pussycats; It’s Complicated; Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion; Battle of the Sexes; Spy Kids 3: Game Over; Emma; Titus; Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams; Nicholas Nickleby; Sweet Land; Black Beauty; Circle of Friends; The Anniversary Party; Dare; The Tempest; Hurricane Bianca; Future BMT: The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas; The Smurfs 2; The Smurfs; Strange Magic; Buddy; BMT: Son of the Mask; Spice World; Garfield; Get Carter; Show Dogs; Burlesque; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Supporting Actor for Son of the Mask in 2006; Notes: Was nominated for four Emmys, once for organizing the Tonys, and three other times as a guest star on The Good Wife. He won a Tony Awards as a lead in Cabaret in 1998.)
Budget/Gross – $84,000,000 / Domestic: $17,018,422 (Worldwide: $59,981,548)
(Brutal, although somehow I doubt they actually spent 84 million dollars on the film. That has to be some fudging. I still assume it was a pretty major loss considering the amount of CGI involved.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 6% (6/105): Overly frantic, painfully unfunny, and sorely missing the presence of Jim Carrey.
(Well yeah. There should never have been a sequel without Carrey. Reviewer Highlight: No doubt extensive market research shows that there’s an audience out there for movies like Son Of The Mask, but it’s too depressing to speculate who that might be. – Scott Tobias, Variety)
Poster – Sklogtown USA 2: Maskalicious
(Sometimes I just don’t have a pun for the poster. Deal with it. The whole thing makes me a little sad though. Not like Ace Ventura Jr. sad, but still pretty sad. Lots of things going on, nothing that I want to see. Good font, too much going on to understand. Could be worse, but couldn’t be sadder. C-)
Tagline(s) – The next generation of mischief (C+)
(This is fine. It gets the point across in a not totally terrible way, but not in a way that is interesting. The more concerning tagline on the poster is “From the director of Cats & Dogs.” That’s an F.)
Keyword – transformation
Top 10: Mortal Kombat (2021), Avengers: Endgame (2019), Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001), The Conjuring 2 (2016), Wonder Woman 1984 (1984), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), The New Mutants (2020), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Doctor Sleep (2019), The Matrix (1999)
Future BMT: 89.4 Vampires Suck (2010), 88.2 Street Fighter (1994), 69.5 Teen Wolf Too (1987), 69.1 The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006), 68.8 The Shaggy Dog (2006), 68.7 Supergirl (1984), 65.0 Max Steel (2016), 63.0 Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie (1997), 61.0 Cursed (2005), 60.7 Skinwalkers (2006);
BMT: Masters of the Universe (1987), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), Fantastic Four (2015), Hellboy (2019), Vampire Academy (2014), Gods of Egypt (2016), Batman & Robin (1997), Event Horizon (1997), Transformers: The Last Knight (2017), X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019), The Mummy (2017), Warcraft: The Beginning (2016), Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014), Super Mario Bros. (1993), R.I.P.D. (2013), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), Lost in Space (1998), I Am Number Four (2011), Queen of the Damned (2002), Conan the Destroyer (1984), Pixels (2015), Little Nicky (2000), Seventh Son (2014), Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997), Slender Man (2018), Dragonball Evolution (2009), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011), Jason X (2001), Silent Hill: Revelation (2012), Dreamcatcher (2003), Dracula 2001 (2000), Beastly (2011), Son of the Mask (2005), The Lawnmower Man (1992), A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child (1989), I, Frankenstein (2014), The Golden Child (1986), Troll (1986), The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising (2007), Species II (1998), Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989), Vampire in Brooklyn (1995)
(Man, a lot of films do transformations. Only thing this really tells me is the Notability is below average for the film. I’m excited to watch Teen Wolf Too though.)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 20) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Alan Cumming is No. 2 billed in Son of the Mask and No. 8 billed in Get Carter (2000), which also stars Sylvester Stallone (No. 1 billed) who is in Expendables 3 (No. 1 billed), which also stars Jason Statham (No. 2 billed) who is in In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Seige Tale (No. 1 billed), which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 4 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => 2 + 8 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 1 + 4 + 1 = 20. If we were to watch Buddy, and Two for the Money we can get the HoE Number down to 15.
Notes – Plans for a sequel, “The Mask II,’ were in the works years before this film. Nintendo Power magazine held a contest, and first prize was a walk-on role in that movie. The project was canceled, and Nintendo Power issued a public apology to the contest winner in their final issue. Years later, the winner was revealed as Nathan Ryan Runk, from Arbutus, Maryland. The film was technically on hold, so Runk could have chosen the role or money and merchandise. Runk, who was 12 at the time, chose the money, and received $5,000, a film crew jacket (which he later lost), and several Super Nintendo video games, including “Pilotwings 64” on Nintendo 64. He later claimed it was “absolutely the right call.” (Yeah it was, although it would have been a better call to keep the jacket in mint condition and sell it to me for another $5,000)
Film critic Richard Roeper admitted that in the five years he co-hosted with Roger Ebert, this film was the closest he’d come to walking out halfway. Looking back, he wishes he’d walked out.
Initially was supposed to be a follow-up to the original, with Jim Carrey returning as Stanley Ipkiss, but Carrey decided after making Ace Ventura 2 that playing the same character twice wasn’t interesting to him at the time, so the sequel was shelved, and this stand-alone film was developed instead due to Carrey’s indifference to the project. Subsequently, Carrey became more open to sequels, costarring in “Dumb and Dumber To” and stating in 2020 that he wanted to do sequels to both The Mask and Sonic the Hedgehog.
When asked why he agreed to do the film, Jamie Kennedy responded, “I’ll give you 2.5 million reasons.”
Jack Black turned down the role of Tim Avery. (Would have been an infinitely better movie, although still terrible)
Ben Stein is the only actor in this sequel who was also in The Mask (1994).
This is one of four times that a movie starring Jim Carrey had a sequel in which Carrey was not involved. The other sequels are: Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (2003), Evan Almighty (2007) and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective Jr. (2009). (I cut it down, but the note did say Batman Forever didn’t count)
Two dogs played Otis. They were each taught different tricks. Their fur was dyed in patches so they matched on screen.
The character name Tim Avery is a reference to the cartoonist Tex Avery.
Inconsistent with The Mask. In the first movie the mask only works at night but in this one it seems to work anytime even during the day. (There are a bunch of incongruities, in the first it also suggests Loki was trapped in the mask, so him being a character is weird)
Marlyn Waynes, Matthew Lillard, and Ryan Reynolds were all considered for the role of “Tim Avery.”
Awards – Winner for the Razzie Award for Worst Remake or Sequel (2006)
Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Picture (2006)
Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor (Jamie Kennedy, 2006)
Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor (Alan Cumming, 2006)
Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor (Bob Hoskins, 2006)
Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Screen Couple (Jamie Kennedy, 2006)
Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Director (Lawrence Guterman, 2006)
Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Screenplay (Lance Khazei, 2006)
Bad Movie Twins 