The Mask (New Line Platinum Series)

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"With these powers, I could be a superhero, fight crime, work for world peace. But first...", 2010-06-06
Me, a devout comic book fan, must admit that, in this instance, it's the movie which made me seek its comic book source from Dark Horse. THE MASK - and, before it, ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE - catapulted Jim Carrey to superstardom in the early '90s. And, of the two, THE MASK is easily the more widely appealing, more audience friendly picture. It takes a certain taste to really appreciate the macabre, really odd bird that is ACE VENTURA. The plot to THE MASK is sketchy at best but damn if it isn't festooned with several moments which I call sheer movie magic. br / br /In Edge City, bank clerk Stanley Ipkiss is one of them meek pushovers you and I often tend to step on. Every day Stanley takes in all the abuse and lets it fester, and then one evening, after getting tossed out of a club he never even got into, he ends up on an empty bridge, finds a curious wooden mask floating in the river. Later we'll learn that the mask is possibly of Scandinavian origin and possibly belonged to Loki, the Norse god of mischief. We learn even sooner that the mask harbors very peculiar properties. That it bends reality, that it manifests the wearer's inner desires, relaxes inhibitions. Stanley Ipkiss has tons of suppressed inner desires. When he dons the mask, the movie really takes off. br / br /This movie, in its design, fosters elements of 1940s film noir and those wacky classic Warner Brothers cartoons. And if that combination doesn't intrigue you, then how about this mention of Cameron Diaz's sexy debut? One of the interesting twists in this film is that while Stanley Ipkiss meets two lovely ladies - a feisty girl reporter (Amy Yasbeck) and a slinky blonde chanteuse who's also a gangster's moll (Diaz) - the femme fatale turns out not to be the obvious one. Diaz and Carrey surprisingly drum up some good chemistry. Surprisingly, because when you think of Jim Carrey, you don't instantly assume, hey, romantic leading guy... Peter Reigert, by the way, does his best to ground the story with his irascible and deadpan police detective, but it's always a lost cause when Carrey is on the set running wild and mugging for all he's worth. Even that awesome Jack Russell terrier dog gets upstaged. br / br /You just have to endure the moments when Stanley Ipkiss is being Stanley Ipkiss, good-hearted and polite and excruciatingly dull. But I didn't come to this film to watch a doormat at work. The real meat of the story is whenever Ipkiss puts on the mask and we then see that loony character with the green face and tombstone teeth and those garish zoot suits. This is the personification of Stanley's deepest, most pent-up urges, and it's a good thing for the citizens of Edge City that this id is predominantly playful and works off Tex Avery cartoons. As the Mask, Stanley strikes a pose and declares: "With these powers, I could be a superhero, fight crime, work for world peace. But first..." Even a nice guy like Stanley is prone to petty little acts of get-back. Oh, I pray for those two poor auto mechanics... but they deserved it. br / br /ILM steps in to handle the Mask's eyes googling off the sockets and his heart throbbing out and that inner wolf cavorting, but I wouldn't have been surprised if Carrey had managed all that by himself - that's how uber-malleable his face is, how rubbery his frame is. Jim Carrey himself is a walking, talking Tex Avery cartoon and that's even before he puts on his makeup. This film is perfectly suited to his manic improvisational talents. br / br /There are gangsters here, of course, but the Mask treats them more like props in his routines. The Mask's powers are so insidious that you never get the sense that he's really in any sort of danger. You're just left waiting for the next burst of crazy or the next musical number. There are two absolutely magical moments in this film for me, and they're both musical numbers. Carrey and Diaz exuberantly dancing in the Coco Bongo club to "Hey Pachuco!" Then Carrey turns the tables on an army of hardened cops and leads them in a conga line while singing "Cuban Pete." It's neat that the Mask demonstrates a knack for sucking everyone in vicinity into his world of playful anarchy. It's too bad that the film makes it a point that not everyone's inner persona is so playful. Someone else puts on the mask, and you instantly note the difference. br / br /By the way, unlike most of the scuzzy guys implied in this film, not for one moment did I ever think monogamy was some kind of wood.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

A DvD or this..., 2010-05-31
I've got to give this one a mighty shrug since detail, sound or clarity isn't a big thing for a comedy. If it's cheaper on the DvD, go for that and if it's cheaper on the Blu~ ditto.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Entertaining movie and interesting special features, 2010-04-18
Mask is a very entertaining movie and this disk also has interesting special features including how they discovered Cameron Diaz. The production of special features, however, is to be desired. And the DTS part of the sound track is 6.1, not very easy to playback (Dolby is 5.1).

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Smokin, 2010-03-28
It's Party Time P.A.R.T. Y because the mask is definitly one of jim carreys best movies. he should of done the sequel. this movie is awesome

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

great, 2010-03-07
gave it as a present and he loved it! should come in plastic wrap to avoid folding in the shipping process