Jamie
There are so many BMT films that we watched as kids that we never picked up because we sat there thinking, “But we watched that so many times before, that’ll skew our perception.” Darn tootin’! That’s kind of the point. Do we see what made these beloved films BMT qualifiers? Or do we vehemently disagree with their unjust BMT characterization? When Ace Ventura; When Nature Calls came out I think it might have been the funniest movie of all time… check that Billy Madison was the funniest movie of all time, but this was in the upper echelon of funny films. My favorite part? The rhino, duh. Nothing says “a nine-year-old will find this hilarious” more than a completely naked grown man squeezing himself out of the butt of a rhino. Now that I’m a completely naked grown man myself, I’m most anticipating the Monopoly Guy scene. One of the craziest things is the guy who played the Monopoly Guy in this film also played a skinny guy in the film Buddy. So that’s two films he’s in where a gorilla has sex with a human… or am I misremembering the film Buddy?
To recap, Ace Ventura is back, Jack! But this time he’s sad. He lost a raccoon and now has devoted his life to meditation in Tibet. When a representative from the nation of Nibia shows up asking for Ace’s help, the monks at the monastery are thrilled to get rid of him. His task is simple: get back the sacred Great White Bat that has been put up as the dowry for an important wedding between the hostile Wachootoo tribe and the peaceful Wachati tribe. Without it there will be war. Ace is grossed out by the bat, but agrees anyway. In Nibia he is informed of several unsavory suspects by the consul Cadby. He follows numerous leads, but nothing comes of them (other than getting pooped out of a mechanical rhino). When he gets tranquilized it appears to point to the Wachootoo tribe itself, but when he goes to investigate he is put through a series of trials which ultimately proves the innocence of the Wachootoo and instead points to a couple of poachers. This ends up leading to the discovery that the Cadby himself has arranged for war in pursuit of control of the guano trade in the region. Ace confronts Cadby and is able to recover the bat, leaving the consul in the loving grips of a randy gorilla. Ace saves the day, but ultimately earns the ire of the Wachootoo for having (unbeknownst to the viewer) deflowered the bride. THE END.
I still think this film is pretty gosh darn funny. Rewatching the first film along with this, though, does put into perspective just how recently comedy was not just playing with fire, but literally on fire with homophobia, transphobia, and racism. The Ace Ventura films unfortunately have plots that center directly on these stereotypes, so it’s hard to get around. It is something you would have to grapple right off the bat on rewatch. But speaking outside of those terms, I’ve always considered the second film much funnier than the first. It was written with Carrey’s Ace character fully realized. This is certainly true. Way, way funnier. Ace is a cartoon character in a real world in the first film. In the second it’s Ace’s world and we’re living in it. Unfortunately, this also means that almost nothing makes sense. The plot is ludicrously bad, just bopping from joke to joke and eventually “resolving” with a whimper. This doesn’t make it less funny, it just means the second is just not as good of a film as the first… you know, if you were looking for that kind of thing in Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls.
Hot Take Clam Bake! Ace Ventura was obviously killed at the end of this film. Just listen to the plot of Ace Ventura Jr.: “Ace Ventura Jr. is the son of eccentric ‘pet detective’ Ace Ventura, who had disappeared when he was a baby, and is attempting to follow in his footsteps, much to the chagrin of his mother, Melissa, who repeatedly tries to dissuade him from doing so.” First of all, he disappeared when he was a baby. Maybe when he entered a monastery, got wrapped up in a mystery in Africa, and was killed? Maybe that’s when he disappeared? Also, he had a baby with Melissa from the first film. So clearly the birth happened prior to the events of this film. So I better not see Ace Ventura 3 on the horizon unless it’s called Ace Ventura: Ghost Pet Detective. Hot Take Temperature: Miami Beach.
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! How dare you. HOW DAAAAAAAAAAAAARE YOU. Let’s go!
Sometimes you look into the mirror at your clamshell VHS tape of Hook and whisper “Who am I?” and you realize that those movies you liked as a child are actually bad.
C’mon son, you know that day ain’t today. Ace Ventura is hilarious. Get that thought out of your dirty mind this second!
But sure … both films are a mishmash of misogyny, and homophobia, and transphobia, and oh boy is this film racist but like … it’s Ace Ventura, right?
But like … is it morally wrong to show this film to, say, a 10-year-old? The answer I think is yes. They need more context that doesn’t get clouded by a grown man talking out of his butt (objectively hilarious to a 10-year-old). It is on that Revenge of the Nerds level where you would turn to your child and be like “alright … well I forgot about this, but this part is actually rape and this main nerd should be in prison. The sequel should be Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Prison.” It is on the correct side of Soul Man, but on the wrong side of Revenge (only because you could edit Revenge of the Nerds to eliminate the Nerds’ horrible sex crimes).
Alright, enough of the moral quandary, let’s put that to the side and talk about both movies since I forced my wife to watch them with me because she had (gasp!) never seen either.
Verdict: Jim Carry was a whirlwind. A force of nature. The first movie could barely contain him. There is a script online, and for the most part it matches with the movie that was eventually shot, except that it has none of the Jim Carrey-ness of the eventual films. And reading it you can tell it would have been a pretty lackluster comedy without Carrey’s out of this world performance. My guess is that it never is actually made if not for Carrey signing on. Some producer somewhere knew that the script called for a crazy central performance and they nailed it.
The second embraces the character and feels like it sets up to portray the character well, but then gets waylaid by setting it in Africa which immediately causes issues. They really shouldn’t have gone abroad for the first sequel. They should have gone to Hollywood or New York and just amped up Ace Ventura, but kept the more grounded (less fictional) aspects brought in by setting it in a fictional colonized African country.
Fictional Location Alert (Where?) for the country of Nibia, and given the animals probably supposed to be down near South Africa. Not really but kind of a MacGuffin (Why?) for the Great White Bat. And Worst Twist (How?) for the obvious reveal that the white colonial monster is, well, a monster and is trying to set off a tribal war to consolidate power and exploit the resources of the region. I think this is closest to BMT, only because it is pretty funny, but also bad which makes for a pretty entertaining (if fraught) rewatch.
Read about the long lost sequel to When Nature Calls in the quiz, Cheerios,
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