Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls

A surprisingly awful sequel, Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls follows Jim Carrey’s title character as he travels to Africa to locate and recover a stolen (and very rare) white bat. Filmmaker Steve Oedekerk delivers a fairly strong opening credits sequence, a funny parody of Renny Harlin’s Cliffhanger, that ultimately stands as the high point within the proceedings, as the movie, from that point forward, adopts an almost gratingly larger-than-life sensibility that only grows more and more frustrating as time progresses – with Carrey’s egregiously broad performance playing a pivotal role in establishing and perpetuating the picture’s less-than-compelling atmosphere (ie the actor’s cranked-to-11 work here is nothing short of exhausting, and one does long for some of the smaller, more human moments that were in the original film). The episodic bent of Oedekerk’s screenplay paves the way for a hit-and-miss midsection that’s far more miss than it is hit, although there are, admittedly, a very small handful of laugh-out-loud bits of silliness sprinkled throughout (eg Ace is struck in both legs with spears during a ritual). The end result is a terminally underwhelming (and surprisingly racist) misfire that squanders the good will established by the comparatively masterful first movie, and it’s certainly not surprising that Carrey has never returned to this character in the decades since Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls‘ release.

*1/2 out of ****

1 Comment

  1. A surprisingly awful review of a film made two decades ago.

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