Amazon.com video review:
Sometimes it's hard to tell if The Mask (or Jim
Carrey's in-your-face mugging in general) is actually funny, or just
bizarre and grotesque. And sometimes it just doesn't matter. Carrey
plays a shy, Jerry Lewis-like nerd who discovers an ancient mask that
magically transforms him into a green-faced, zoot-suited Tex Avery
cartoon character with no inhibitions. As Roger Ebert said of Carrey
in Ace Ventura: Pet
Detective, the actor performs "as if he's being clocked
on an Energy-O-Meter, and paid by the calorie expended." If
that's your kind of humor, you'll love The Mask; if not, you
may need a valium or two to sit through this one. Digital video disc
extras include two deleted scenes and a commentary track from director
Charles Russell. --Jim Emerson
Amazon.com video review:
For a film heavily dependent on special effects, the best
effect going in this 1994 comedy is the ever-expressive star, Jim
Carrey, playing a shy bank teller who stumbles across an ancient mask
that turns him into a green hepcat with extraordinary powers. Cameron
Diaz plays the love interest, but the real purpose of the movie is to
bring cartoonish energy and effects into a live-action
production. Toward that end, director Charles Russell does the job,
but the gimmick wears out quickly for those easily bored by this sort
of pseudo-animation. Lots of kids adore the film, though, and why not?
The hero gets to be a whirlwind of mischief and still get the
girl. The DVD release
includes optional full-screen and widescreen presentations, deleted
scenes, trailers, optional French soundtrack and optional French and
Spanish subtitles. --Tom Keogh
Amazon.com video review:
This double set of Jim Carrey movies
includes The Mask and Dumb and Dumber. It would be easy
to think of this one as a no-brainer--and that's probably only half
right. Actually, The Mask is one of Carrey's more intriguing
movies, a showcase of the latest (at that time) in computer-generated
special effects, with Carrey playing a nebbish bank clerk who is
transformed into a green-faced superhero with cartoon powers when he
puts on a mystical mask. Dumb and Dumber teams Carrey with Jeff
Daniels as two of the most intelligence-challenged human beings ever
to walk erect, in the first film by the Farrelly brothers (who went on
to direct Kingpin and There's Something About
Mary). Dumb and Dumber is gross-out comedy taken to its
extreme and played to the hilt by its stars. --Marshall Fine
