        Ŀ
          ACE VENTURA, PET DETECTIVE:  Tom Shadyac, director.      
          Jack Bernstein and Tom Shadyac & Jim Carrey, screen-     
          play.  Jack Bernstein, story.  Starring Jim Carrey,      
          Sean Young, Courteney Cox, Tone Loc, Dan Marino, Noble   
          Willingham, Troy Evans, Raynor Scheine, and Udo Kier.    
          Warner Bros.  Rated PG-13.                               
        


          There's a long line of jerkitude in American film, going all
     the way back to the crazed antics of the Keystone Kops.  But
     modern jerkitude, with its endless mugging shot through with
     sudden outbursts of unfocused manic energy, really got its start
     with Jerry Lewis' solo movies.  In a way, you could say that Jim
     Carrey is a latter-day Jerry Lewis, with all the attendant
     positives and negatives that go with the image.  Self-righteous,
     dumb-as-dirt ineptitude mixed with the high-velocity activity of
     a cat that has to be in another room, *any* other room, right
     NOW! needs a story to wrap itself around to succeed.  The story
     has to be solid and the over-the-top antics have to be motivated
     and character or situation-driven to entertain me these days.
     Unfortunately, ACE VENTURA, PET DETECTIVE doesn't live up to the
     challenge it sets for itself, despite containing several very
     funny scenes.

          I could shoot Steve Martin for having revived film jerkitude
     with his first starring role in THE JERK (1979).  While I'm fond
     of slapstick, I don't like films that rely too much on freeform
     bits that don't relate to the rest of the movie.  Jim Carrey's
     craziness works to great effect on IN LIVING COLOR (Fox-TV), but
     in ACE VENTURA, a little bit goes a long way.  So much of it is
     unmotivated, just thrown in because somebody thought it was
     funny, that you get a kitchen-sink effect of Carrey's comedy:
     too overwhelming for its own good.  Director Shadyac should have
     earned his money and learned to say "No" to Carrey in several
     scenes.  Characters like this always raise the question, "Why the
     heck does he act like that?" which in turn begs the question,
     "Why the heck does anyone put up with him?"

          Ace differs from his film jerk colleagues, though:  he
     actually has a brain.  Too bad his brain is engaged only when
     he's detecting.  He's short on the social graces, but then what
     film jerk isn't?  I find there's only a certain amount of
     outrageousness a film can contain from a single character; once
     the outrageousness reaches the saturation point, anything beyond
     that strains credulity.  (It's an entirely different matter if
     the whole movie is wigged out, though, and that's another review
     for another time.)  Reflecting on the film, I begin to wonder why
     I'm having such a problem with Carrey's character; I mean, he
     isn't even HALF as annoying as Chris Elliott in CABIN BOY.

          The film starts promising enough:  Snowflake, the Miami
     Dolphins' mascot, has been kidnaped, and Ace Ventura is called
     in.  He immediately finds a clue, after going through a couple
     Star Trek impressions (if Robin Williams is the King of Non-
     Sequiters, Carrey is the Crown Prince), a clue that the cops, led
     by ice queen Lt. Einhorn (Sean Young), had missed completely: a
     gem from an AFC championship ring.  With a combination of clever
     deduction and moronic wit, not to mention an embarrassing
     confrontation in the team showers, Ventura manages to solve the
     case.  But not before the Dolphins' quarterback, Dan Marino (who
     plays himself, natch), is also snatched.  The final revelation
     is, well, umm . . . different.  All the way through, Carrey
     manages to put his rubber body and elastic face to maximum
     effect, for the good and ill that does.

          Most of the supporting cast aren't given much to do around
     Carrey's mugging.  Courteney Cox plays the team's publicist, and
     of course she falls for Ventura.  Tone Loc marks time as a cop
     who feeds Ventura some needed information, under Lt. Einhorn's
     nose.  Marino is . . . himself, what else can I say?  Sean
     Young steals the show from the other supporting players, though.
     Based on this and on her performance in FATAL INSTINCT, I think
     Young could become a sought-after comedic actress if she could
     just find the right vehicle.

     RATING:  $
