Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective Blu-ray Movie Review

All Righty Then (and Now)

Reviewed by Michael Reuben August 30, 2013

I still recall the scathing reviews that greeted Ace Ventura: Pet Detective in February 1994. "The movie has the metabolism, logic and attention span of a peevish 6-year-old", said the New York Times. "An escaped mental patient impersonating a game show host", said Entertainment Weekly of Jim Carrey's performance. (Actually, that sounds like something worth seeing.) Even the late Roger Ebert, who was usually receptive to something new and different, didn't get it: "I found the movie a long, unfunny slog through an impenetrable plot."

As Ace might say: "Lo-o-o-sers!"

Ace Ventura quickly became a box office hit, spawning a sequel and an animated spinoff, and launching major careers for both director Tom Shadyac and star Jim Carrey. Kids all over America adopted the pet detective's phrases and mannerisms—and not just kids either. On his commentary track, Shadyac tells of an encounter between his brother, an attorney, and a judge (yes, a judge), who asked the lawyer whether he was related to the Shadyac who had directed Ace Ventura. When the startled counsellor answered in the affirmative, His Honor bent over in his robes and began talking out of his butt. Shadyac doesn't say, but one can only hope this didn't occur in open court.

Carrey had appeared in previous films, but before Ace he was known primarily as "the white guy" on the Fox series In Living Color. A much smaller group of fans knew him from his standup work at comedy clubs at Los Angeles, which is what inspired Shadyac during pre-production on Ace Ventura. (Or, at least, that's Shadyac's version; accounts vary.) The film's script had been through numerous drafts, but the character had consistently been conceived in a semi-realistic style similar to Chevy Chase's Fletch. Rick Moranis was initially attached to the project, but when Carrey was cast, both he and Shadyac agreed that the story needed more energy. Finding the very notion of a "pet detective" to be inherently silly, Shadyac suggested that Carrey go wildly over the top, using a specific voice and demeanor from his standup act.

From that point forward, the biggest technical challenge was for everyone else to keep a straight face during takes. In Shadyac's commentary, he confesses that he had to cut away from some scenes sooner than he would have liked, simply because another actor cracked up during an inspired Carrey improv.

Ace Ventura is so much about its title character's crazy behavior that plot barely matters. But here goes: Someone has kidnapped Snowflake, the aquatic mascot of the Miami Dolphins football team just before the Superbowl. Team owner Riddle (Noble Willingham) tells his assistant, Melissa Robinson (Courteney Cox, before Friends made her famous), and coach Roger Podacter (Troy Evans) to do whatever they can to find Snowflake, because athletes are superstitious. The Miami police, led by the imperious Lt. Lois Einhorn (Sean Young), have no leads, and a receptionist in the Dolphins' office tells Melissa about a "pet detective" named Ace Ventura (Carrey), who helped find her missing dog.

In venerable gumshoe tradition, Ace is mocked and despised by most of the cops, especially Sgt. Aguado (John Capodice), but has one friend on the force, Emilio (Tone Loc), who can be persuaded—or pressured—to share information about the case. A clue overlooked by the authorities prompts Ace to focus on everyone who might own a 1984 AFC Championship ring. This leads him to the mysterious Ray Finkle, who dropped out of sight after missing a game-deciding field goal. Find Finkle, and he'll find Snowflake (not to mention Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino, playing himself, who has also disappeared).

That's an accurate plot summary (except that I'm guessing at the jobs held by Melissa Robinson and Roger Podacter, because the movie doesn't bother with such details). But none of it even hints at why Ace Ventura is memorable. For that, you just have to watch the opening sequence, which, like many great openings (think Goldfinger or Raiders of the Lost Ark) has nothing to do with the plot, but it had me gasping for breath the first time I saw it. Disguised as a UPS, excuse me, "HDS" deliveryman, our hero gleefully bangs, crashes, slams and drop-kicks a package prominently marked "Fragile" and "Glass" before delivering it to a dog-napper as a diversion, while he rescues the captive pooch. With joyful abandon, Carrey/Ace enacts the secret paranoia of everyone who's ever sent or received a UPS or FedEx package, and Shadyac lingers over the moment (and layers in horrifying sounds of shattering glass). Every good director lets the audience know what to expect at the outset, and Shadyac tells everyone up front that they're watching a live-action cartoon character who has escaped into the real world and doesn't operate by our rules.

And so it goes, as Ace catches a bullet in his teeth, survives a direct encounter with a shark unharmed and takes blow after blow that would cripple a normal person. His ability to communicate with animals of every species is as flexible as his rubber face, and his deductive skills are as impressive as his self-regard. Much of what happens in Ace Ventura is gratuitous as far as solving the mystery is concerned; the extended visit to a mental hospital is a prime example. Shadyac's principal in editing seems to have been to keep only those scenes that were either crucial to the plot, such as it is, or got a belly laugh in previews.

Having a live-action cartoon character as your hero turned out to be just the right approach for a plot that is ultimately resolved by a ludicrous twist. (Those familiar with the film will know what I mean.) By the time the culprit in the kidnappings of Snowflake and Marino is revealed, suspension of disbelief is no longer an issue. After the talking butt, the tutu, the Mission Impossible parody and the apartment menagerie trained to hide from the landlord at the jingle of keys, anything is possible.

Note: In response to questions from several readers, I can confirm that the so-called "dolphin trainer" scene added to some prior video versions does not appear in this Blu-ray version. Nor did it appear in the theatrical release.

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shadyac's commentary is filled with praise for cinematographer Julio Macat (Wedding Crashers), with whom he would work again on The Nutty Professor. Still, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective has never been a glossy film, probably due to budget constraints (which is also a recurrent theme in Shadyac's commentary). It has the rough texture of an analog feature from the early Nineties, before the advent of digital tools gave cinematographers the luxury of adjusting shadows and improving densities and textures in post-production.

What the film does have is a wonderfully varied color palette, and Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray makes the most of it, showcasing the Florida locations, the primaries of the football and cheerleader uniforms, the various shades of plumage and fur on Ace's varied array of animal friends and, of course, Ace's own collection of loud camp shirts. The blacks of the formal wear worn at a party given by a wealthy suspect are solid and deep. Detail ranges from exceptionally good to somewhat soft in longer shots that look like they may have been somewhat underlit. The film has an obvious and identifiable grain pattern, but the grain is fine and well-handled.

In an occasional shot, I detected minute amounts of macroblocking, but they went by very quickly. A higher average bitrate than 21.93 Mbps might have been preferable, but on the whole the compressionist seems to have done a satisfactory job.

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

As far as I have been able to determine, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective was released in Dolby Stereo, and the original DVD release in 1997 had a DD 2.0 track. The soundtrack was remastered in DD 5.1 for a later DVD release, which is presumably the mix presented here in lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1. It's an energetic but front-oriented track, with most of the energy supplied by Carrey's delivery and Ira Newborn's (Ferris Bueller's Day Off) hyperkinetic score, which includes a number of sly musical parodies. Several familiar songs appear on the soundtrack, but they are tied to specific story points, and naming them might be considered a spoiler.

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Warner first issued Ace Ventura: Pet Detective on DVD in 1997 in a full frame version accompanied by the commentary and trailer included here. In 2006, it remastered the film in anamorphic widescreen and 5.1 audio for a three-disc DVD edition with the film's sequel, plus three episodes of the animated children's TV series based on the title character. Those episodes have been included as Blu-ray extras. The only omitted extra is a set of TV spots added in the 2006 three-disc edition.

• Commentary with Directory Tom Shadyac: Shadyac recorded this commentary for laserdisc in 1997, shortly after recording a commentary for the Universal Signature laserdisc edition of Liar Liar. His affection for Ace Ventura is obvious, because it gave him a career in Hollywood after ten years of struggle. His commentary is frank and direct about the many chances that he and Carrey took in transforming the character of Ace into a walking cartoon, without any assurance that anyone outside the production would find the character funny. Shadyac also discusses his own evolution as a director and some of the technical lessons he learned on Ace, which was his first feature film.



• Ace Ventura: Pet Detective Animated Series (480i; 1.33:1): Produced by Warner, the Ace Ventura animated series ran for two seasons on CBS from 1995 to 1997, then for a third and final season on Nickelodeon from 1999 to 2000. A total of 39 episodes were produced. Ace was voiced by actor Michael Daingerfield.
• The Reindeer Hunter (Season 1) (22:46)
• Natural Born Koalas (Season 1) (22:43)
• Dragon Guy (Season 2) (23:14)



• Theatrical Trailer (480i; 1.78:1; 2:05): The trailer captured the character's bizarre quality, but it couldn't do justice to just how funny the movie is.

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

As is often the case in show business, the success of Ace Ventura and its sequel came at a price. Typecast as a comedian, Jim Carrey has struggled for years to be accepted in other kinds of roles, only to be yanked back inexorably toward the kind of clowning which first won him an audience. Great comics are almost always great actors, and Carrey has demonstrated his dramatic abilities in any number of projects (my personal favorite is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). His career trajectory may end up resembling Bill Murray's, who wasn't taken seriously as a character actor until his hair turned gray. Whatever happens next, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective remains a hilarious film. Highly recommended.