Not so Ace Ventura 2
Whilst "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" was little more than a showcase to highlight Jim Carrey's whacky sense of humour it held together nicely because it had purpose, it had a storyline which just about linked all the comedy together. Unfortunately the same can't be said of the follow up "Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls" because whilst it starts and ends with a story what goes on in between is just machine gun comedy, one attempt to be funny after another which frequently struggle to tie into the story. Some won't mind this as we have Jim Carrey again trying to make a joke out of everything but for me it, the humour and Jim Carrey end up annoying, trying too hard to be funny and forgetting to give the humour purpose.
After an incident which saw Ace (Jim Carrey - Batman Forever) loose a Racoon he has gone into hiding high up in a Himalayan monastery. But he is tracked down when a sacred white bat disappears because unless Ace can discover who stole it there is going to be tribal bloodshed.
For a very brief minute when "Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls" started I thought maybe it was going to be good as we immediately have a spoof of "Cliffhanger". Sadly it ends up uninspired and sets the scene for much of the rest of the movie with random jokes which have barely any relevance to the actual story. And that is the next problem because whilst the movie sets up Ace being tracked down to help find a sacred white bat and ends with him discovering who stole the bat and why what goes on in between is story-less.
What this means is that "Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls" is little more than an excuse for Jim Carrey to deliver more daft comedy but because this time so much has little relevance to the actual story it ends up dull. The cleverness of the humour from the first movie has vanished replaced by a lot of weak rehashes and daftness which might amuse fans of Carrey but quickly becomes repetitive and dull. The easiest way to describe this is to mention the scene where Consulate General Vincent Cadby becomes tired and annoyed by Ace's need to make fun of everything; it is the same for the viewer because that need to make everything funny ends up very unfunny.
Now I could mention that "Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls" features Simon Callow, Ian McNeice and Bob Gunton but to be honest there is no point because this is all about Jim Carrey. Now as of March 2013 this is the only sequel Jim Carrey has returned for and maybe it explains why he hasn't done more sequels because it certainly isn't a great show of his comic talents. You almost sense that Carrey was struggling to make much of the repetitive humour work and at times seems to be going through the motions when we get a rehashed joke from the first movie.
What this all boils down to is that "Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls" is a poor sequel which may just about appeal to fans of Jim Carrey but does little for those who hoped for an inspired riot of comedy. It is weak and uninspired as irrelevant gags replace clever humour which tires to the story and far too often it resorts to just rehashing the humour from the first movie.
