Light movie version of a pitch-dark comic

Rating: 8/10 (24 August 2007)

I first met The Mask as a comic, a violent, even revolting comic. I had to read it is small doses, because the violence was too extreme for my taste.
As a movie, it is totally different. That is usually a bad sign, most movies that changes the concept so much fail to tell a good story, but when The Mask gets a less violent script and Carrey's incredible rubber face combined with cartoon-style special effects (and pretty good acting in between), the result is that the humor gets a lot stronger.
In the comic, Ipkiss murders his old teacher with a book down her throat, and the car service men are slaughtered in similar ways. In the movie, we see one of the car service guys in pain, but he obviously survives. When the comic Ipkiss slaughters dozens of policemen, the movie version merely teases them. And it is much easier to laugh at.
And the movie is great fun. No wonder it made Carrey a superstar. I have seen many of his movies, and this is one of the very best. Other favorites, "Bruce almighty" and "Truman show" are in many ways logical successors.
The original story misuses our Norse god Loki as bad as US people always seem to do. Americans seem to be unable to understand Loki, so they use him as a devil or a demon, which is completely wrong. But the movie is more bent to mischief than slaughter, so the movie makes a big step in the right direction.
Something that disturbs me is the bad guy Dorian Tyrell (Peter Greene) and the plot around him. He is a flat, standard mobster, and his part seems like something that was slapped on because the original ending was too horrible for the movie. But let me also say that the actors do their job well. I just feel that the standard gangster plot feels cheap.
So the mobster plot was a disappointment in an otherwise very funny and worthwhile movie.