A deeply flawed film - which children should not see.

Rating: 6/10 (12 April 2011)

I first saw this movie when it came out. It was hyped and it delivered - I enjoyed it. For it's time it had a lot of very good special effects. It left us with the immortal "Smokin'"! and "Somebody stop me"!
Carrey is average as the nerky bank clerk, but as The Mask Carrey is terrific and very funny.
Over the years I've grown to regard The Mask as a kids' film - but here's the big problem; The Mask is most definitely not a children's film!!!
I sat down and properly watched The Mask for the first time in years and was really quite surprised and disappointed at what I saw;
It's very violent. For example; The Mask/Ipkiss (a good guy????) goes for revenge on the garage workers who humiliate him, and one character is hospitalised with an exhaust pipe clearly stuck up his rectum. He then goes on to rob a bank! There is some pretty ripe language - short of swearing, but only just! Pretty much all of the adults, including The Mask/Ipkiss, are BAD role-models who do pretty bad things to each other. The comic-like setting is not comic like enough, and children will only see the nastiness, not the irony.
So - Despite its billing, The Mask is not a kids film. What does it offer adults then?
Well, there's Cameron Diaz, who is very easy on the eye, reminiscent of Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). In fact Diaz even strikes very similar poses to Jessica, probably deliberately. She does quite well with a silly character and script, a very good first outing in a big movie for her.
But that's about it! There's nothing of substance here for adult viewers. The film is cartoon like on all levels; The story is weak, dialogue silly and infantile. The setting - "Edge City" might as well be New York, don't know why they called it Edge City. There's lots of pointless stuff like this, which isn't funny.
Also not funny is the epi-centre of the film; The CoCo Club - which is guarded by nasty bent thugs and in spite of the glamorous dressy people outside all fighting to get in is not a place to aspire to. Not good for any children watching, not good at all. Worse still - the "Hero" Ipkiss/The Mask is desperate to gain entry in order to chase after Diaz. Not somewhere a Hero should be looking to go - not something children looking for a "Hero" or adult role-model in general should see.
There are lots of bad guys, bad guys working for bad guys, working for bad guys - and they all smoke! Even Diaz works for a bad guy - which makes her a bad guy too. The cops are silly and seen to be so. Then there's The Mask who seems to be a good guy but is a bad guy quite a lot of the time. He takes the Mickey out of the bad guys, but then he robs the Bank that his alter ego Ipkiss works in! The Mask packs lots of weapons too and in one scene uses a 'balloon' machine gun to shoot up a knife gang which come after him to try and mug him. Not for children! Sure - The Mask is funny - but he is NOT a classic goodie, not a "Hero".
There are plenty of scenes with overt violence which are much too strong for children under the age of 11-12. The worst one is the huge shoot up at the Club near the end; there is plenty of blood, plenty of holes in chests. Not good for children, not good at all!
So - this film fails to be kids classic, which is really what it should have been. It fails to entertain adults on anything more than a simplistic level. I've given it 6 because Carrey is excellent as "The Mask". The film very occasionally shows the viewer the humour in what it might be like if you could really do what your inner self tells you you should do. But so what?