Rating: 1.5 Stars
The following review contains spoilers.
Overview:
When Tim Avery’s dog brings home a strange green mask it found in a nearby river, Tim doesn’t think much of it. Later, desperate for a Halloween costume to wear to a party at the cartoon production company where he works, he puts the mask on. Of course it’s the capital-M Mask of Loki, and it gives him strange powers, making him the most popular guy at the party. He does crazy stuff like take girls’ clothes off and… take girls’ clothes off. He also sings a weird version of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” that’s a medley of many different genres, and for some reason everyone loves it. Tim then goes straight home and makes love to his wife.
The next day, Tim has lost the Mask, but his wife is now pregnant, and his boss thinks his green pervert character could be the next big smash cartoon hit. The only trouble is, without the Mask, Tim doesn’t actually have any ideas and is not good at his job (this is key, as the movie seems to suggest at first that Tim is just waiting for his big break, but time and again what the movie actually demonstrates is that Tim has no ideas and is terribly unsuited to be the creator/executive producer of an animated TV show). Even more trouble comes when the baby is born and has inherited the Mask’s infinite powers.
Meanwhile, Loki has been tasked by his father Odin to find the lost Mask as well as the baby “born of the Mask” but he’s very bad at this, and mostly just wanders around yelling at people. Eventually he makes a list of every baby born in the area on the appropriate day, but even when he arrives at Tim’s house, he looks at the baby for a moment, it doesn’t immediately do anything crazy, and he assumes it must not be the right baby. His literal plan was, I assume any Mask baby is going to do a crazy cartoon thing within five or so seconds, and if not, they must not be the right one.
Anyway, Loki accidentally discovers that Tim’s baby is the right baby after all, and tries to kidnap it, when Odin shows up and takes Loki’s powers away for some reason. This is a waste of time, because the next thing Loki does is summon Odin and ask for his powers back, and Odin gives them to him, but only for one hour. So Loki kidnaps the baby and demands the return of the Mask, which Tim is happy to do, until Loki betrays him and says he’ll keep both because he likes the baby and they get along. There is a big Mask-powers fight, and then Loki’s one hour is up and his powers disappear. Odin shows up to yell at him, but Tim intercedes, explaining he’s learned a thing or two about fatherhood in the last couple days, and Odin and Loki reconcile. I thought at some point one of the gods would take away the baby’s Mask powers, but they totally don’t, so I guess that’s just something they’ll have to deal with for the rest of their lives. Tim then makes a new cartoon about his baby and dog fighting for his love and attention (oh yeah the dog also has Mask powers for a big chunk of the second act) and it’s a huge hit despite being clearly awful.
Best Parts:
For a movie with this reputation, I’m shocked that it’s actually about something. It has an actual theme and character arc about growing up and becoming a father, and it actually draws connections between Tim and his son’s rocky relationship and Odin’s relationship with Loki. That’s kind of amazing for something as stupid as this movie. Now the pivotal moment where Tim comes to feel a true connection to his child is triggered by the child literally saving his life by making a metal shield out of its arms to block a giant cartoon grenade thrown by Loki and not by like, I don’t know, laughing at a joke or saying “da-da” or whatever, but hey it has something.
The scenes where the dog and the baby are both fighting each other as a couple of cartoons, with all kinds of ridiculous schemes and cartoon trickery, are kind of amusing. It may be generic and familiar, but I used to watch those types of cartoons as a kid, and so part of me felt like, hey, I recognize this. Recognizing things can feel good. It doesn’t necessarily feel great, but it feels a little bit good.
Worst Parts:
Outside of the parts mentioned just above, it’s not actually a thoughtful movie or a funny movie. On the one hand it feels like there’s barely any actual The Mask here, but on the other hand the one big scene with The Mask, at the Halloween party, is dreadful. The idea that we’re supposed to believe the whole company was charmed and thrilled by The Mask is absurd. He sucks, he looks hideous, and particularly at a company party you would just want to get as far away from him as possible.
The one female character isn’t as bad as she could be — she seems to actually like and enjoy her husband’s company, and he hers — but her sole character trait is “Want baby now!” and it’s a little cliched and annoying.
The acting is almost uniformly terrible. I’m not even the biggest Jim Carrey fan, but Jamie Kennedy makes Jim Carrey look like a genius. Alan Cumming is terrible as Loki (and why is he doing an American accent? Loki isn’t American). There’s a bunch of scenes of Loki visiting various people to check if their baby is the Mask baby, and for some reason using a different disguise every time even though, like, these people don’t know each other, and each scene is so bad and so unfunny.
The idea of a wacky cartoon character in the real world could be a good one, but this world already feels like a cartoon, and is colored and decorated like a cartoon, before anyone even puts on the Mask in the first place. The Mask actually feels right at home in “Fringe City”.
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