Dr. Carrey, Mr. Mask ... and the cinematic tribute to the greatest cartoon director!...

Rating: 8/10 (10 March 2016)

Along with "Dumb and Dumber" and "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective", Chuck Russell's "The Mask" is part of that 1994 trinity that finally, and forever, put Jim Carrey in Hollywood map. He was certainly a successful and relatively known comedian before but I'm sure the size of his house and the relationship with his banker had considerably improved in 1995.
And it was a deserved success, as only the big screen could do justice to this face-of-thousand-faces, to this extraordinary elasticity and capability to transform into a celebrity or to express any possible emotion, or both. Just look at Carrey becoming James Dean, it takes him a few seconds but it's like watching a live metamorphosis and the result is outstanding, he seems to have a rubber-made face that can use every single muscle. And when you see the two other movies, you realize that Carrey has elevated the word 'grimace' to the rank of high art, and that in fact, he didn't need the mask to be the Mask, still, he needed "The Mask" to show that he was Carrey before the Mask.
Indeed, the paradox of "The Mask" is that it uses Carrey's talent with a device that is a green rubber mask and one of the first use of CGI to create Tex Avery-like special effects, and that premises gives the misleading impression that the faces Carrey makes are the results of special effects. Yet, this paradox helps the movies and Carrey's career as well, as it allows him to play a more human and appealing character than Ace Ventura and Lloyd Christmas. As the meek and shy Stanley Ipkiss, Carrey can let his more sensitive side being expressed and create a likable character in the same vein than Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin and let his Mask-counterpart act like Harpo Marx.
Ipkiss is a timid bank clerk who's get bullied by everyone and he has no one to vent his anger on, he just comes back home, talks with his dog Milo and watches a few Tex Avery cartoons and envies the wolf's exuberance and liberty. It's like Jim Carrey wishing to be Jim Carrey. We finally have glimpses on a realistic facet of the actor's range and it does have a few serious undertones as it explores the traditional 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde' dual personalities theme with a sort of Faustian notion that there's a price to pay for being better by cheating, that it might lead to mayhem and a false impression of happiness. But he's only human and when he discovers that mask on the beach, he can't resist.
And he has a taste on how it feels to live like a Tex Avery character and becomes one of the greatest creation of the 90's, a guy dressed in the typical zoot suit and act like a real version of Genie from "Aladdin" with some of the obnoxiousness of Ace Ventura. Yet, there's no doubt that "The Mask" is 100% original creation, and a source of gags and music like no comedy had provided since the Golden Age. The film is punctuated by great musical numbers, a magnificent Cuban party, a Konga with policemen and prostitutes, some impressions where Carrey can deliver his comical talent and so many unforgettable punchlines as "Smokin'" or "Somebody stop me!".
But if it wasn't just for a series of 'unstoppable' stunts, musical vignettes and other comedic numbers, the film would have quickly become redundant. There's also great performances, besides Carrey who, for once, is allowed to tone down his usual zaniness and shows a true vulnerability, and manages to look sweet and handsome. There's the scene-stealing dog, who has a great talent to read the lips, and it contributes to one of the film's best gags, totally lost in the original French version I saw and it tells something when the film's best gag doesn't involve the main character.
And there is the love interest, played by Cameron Diaz, in a film debut kids who became teens in the mid-90's never forgot, I plead guilty as I remember having rented the VHS only for her entrance and the nightclub sequence. Diaz is amazingly sexy, sensual and beautiful as the equivalent of Tex Avery red-headed pin-up, it's not just the body but perhaps her smile that makes her so appealing, but Diaz just doesn't play the pin-up, she's as convincing in her acting as Carrey and even pulls out dramatic expressions when the situation requires it. Both Carrey and Diaz deserve credit for their performance, and the scene where they dance together is the greatest tribute to Tex Avery, and the film had me if only it gave tribute to my favorite cartoon director.
It was 'no holds barred' with Tex Avery, but that's not true, Tex Avery cartoons, as crazy and nonsensical as they were, were not just successions of fourth-wall-breaking moments, mindless screams, wild explosions or chases that never added up to the plot, don't get "The Whacky World of Tex Avery" and good old Tex Avery cartoons mixed, Avery was a storyteller, and "The Mask" doesn't take its zaniness for granted and can afford a good plot with an obligatory antagonist, well-played by Peter Greene, a mid-90's figure who seems to have disappeared from the screen (he was Zed in "Pulp Fiction" and Redfoot in "The Usual Suspects"), an embittered cop with his jovial assistant, and a nice climactic confrontation where the Mask shows its limits, when worn by the wrong person or animal (Muttley-like-laugh)
Indeed, it's better to act according to our true nature, and it doesn't take a mask to reveal who we are, in Ipkiss' case, the mask was just the catalysis for a new departure and for Carrey's career. I have a feeling ever since he started doing these comical roles, Carrey has tried to prove he was more an Ipkiss than a Mask, this shows how defining the movie is.