I recently saw "Me, Myself and Irene" and to me, it made "Something About Mary" seem like a Disney movie. As you know, Peter and Bobby Farrelly made both of those films and another Jim Carrey classic "Dumb and Dumber". I think it's safe to say that if you liked the other two, then "Irene" is right up your alley. It wasn't necessarily a great movie but it was several bite-sized portions of Jim Carrey's unique style of comedy. It reminded me of about 15 or 20 "Saturday Night Live" sketches thrown together to make a movie. The Farrelly brothers specialize in giving you sight gags that you can't forget, even if you try. I laughed a lot. I liked the music, too, which features several Steely Dan covers. Listen for Hootie and the Blowfish, too, doing a nice version of "Can't Find The Time to Tell You".
As for Jim Carrey, his gifts for physical comedy are rightly celebrated. I don't think he gets enough credit for his serious acting, though. Maybe that's the price you pay for making "The Mask" or for yucking it up and sticking asparagus in your mouth as he did in "Ace Ventura". Whatever. I still think he deserved an Oscar nomination for both "The Truman Show" and "Man in the Moon", the Andy Kaufman story.
It is so easy to characterize Carrey as just a comedian. But when you consider that the same guy who played Ace Ventura was also Truman Burbank and Andy Kaufman, you have to admit that those roles display a lot of range and depth. Throw in Carrey as Chip Douglas in "The Cable Guy" and you have an even wider range of roles. Carrey took chances in those movies by playing against his established, successful persona as the wacky, lovable wild man of comedy. Chip Douglas was downright mean and unsympathetic, to say the least. Not cuddly at all. It seems to me he wasn't praised for those efforts to stretch his talents as much as he would have been ridiculed for making outrageous comedy after comedy.
Carrey is funny, yes, but he is also able to morph himself completely into these various characters. He becomes whoever he plays and that has always been the sign of a great actor. We laud Robert DeNiro because he becomes Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver" or Jake LaMotta in "Raging Bull". For some reason, we don't acknowledge similar performances by Jim Carrey.
Robin Williams overcame the "comedian" label to win an Academy Award for "Good Will Hunting". But that role did not blow me away. I prefer Carrey to Williams when it comes to outrageous comedic actors. I think his highs are higher and, yes, his lows are lower. There are also times when I wish Carrey would pull back a bit and not take things so far. He can overdo it. But still, overall, Jim Carrey is a compelling performer whose serious work is underrated by both critics and the general public.
Maybe he is laying the groundwork as a serious actor with these roles so that they will someday be seen and accepted as a big part of who he is as an actor, rather than just what he does in between the movies in which he plays with food and makes a lot of faces. I hope so.
