Psycho's Movie Reviews #399: The Mask (1994)

The Mask is a 1994 American superhero comedy film directed by Chuck Russell, produced by Bob Engelman, and written by Mike Werb, loosely based on the Mask comics published by Dark Horse Comics. The first instalment in The Mask franchise, it stars Jim Carrey in the title role, Peter Riegert, Peter Greene, Amy Yasbeck, Richard Jeni, and Cameron Diaz in her film debut. Carrey plays Stanley Ipkiss, a hapless, everyday bank clerk who finds a magical wooden green mask that transforms him into The Mask, a green-faced troublemaker with the ability to cartoonishly alter himself and his surroundings at will. He starts using these powers to fight crime, only to become targeted by Dorian Tyrell, a gangster who desires to overthrow his superior.

The film was released on July 29, 1994, by New Line Cinema, becoming a critical and commercial success. The film grossed over $351 million on a $18–23 million budget, which made it the second most profitable film based on a comic up to that point, behind Superman (1978). The film also influenced the resurgence of swing music in the 1990s. It cemented Carrey's reputation as a significant actor of the 1990s, and it established Diaz as a leading lady. Carrey was nominated for a Golden Globe for his role, and the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects but lost to Forrest Gump. A standalone sequel, Son of the Mask, was released in 2005 to a critical and box office failure.

Plot

In Edge City, insecure and down on his luck cartoon-loving bank clerk Stanley Ipkiss is frequently ridiculed by everyone except for his co-worker and best friend, Charles "Charlie" Schumaker. Meanwhile, gangster Dorian Tyrell, who owns the Coco Bongo nightclub, plots to overthrow his superior, Niko. One day, Tyrell sends his dazzling singer girlfriend, Tina Carlyle, into the bank to record its layout for an upcoming robbery. Stanley is attracted to Tina and she seemingly reciprocates.

Unable to enter the Coco Bongo to watch Tina perform and after his faulty loaner car breaks down while driving home, Stanley despairingly looks over the harbour bridge, lost in thought of what to do. His stream of thought is interrupted, however, when he notices a humanoid figure in the waters, which he assumes to be a drowning man. As he attempts to rescue the "drowning man", he finds that it was just a strange wooden mask. Upon returning to his apartment and donning the mask, he becomes a mischievous green-faced figure known as "The Mask", who can cartoonishly alter himself and his surroundings at will. With his newfound confidence and lack of inhibitions, Stanley indulges in a comical rampage through the city, humiliating several of his tormentors, including his temperamental landlady, Agnes Peenman, and the mechanics who gave him the faulty car.

The next morning, Stanley encounters detective Lieutenant Mitch Kellaway and newspaper reporter Peggy Brandt, both of whom are investigating the Mask's activity. To obtain the funds necessary to attend Tina's performance, Stanley again dons the mask and raids the bank, inadvertently foiling Tyrell's robbery in the process. At the Coco Bongo, Stanley becomes infatuated with Tina, who he ends up kissing after sharing an exuberant dance with her. Shortly after, after Tyrell confronts him for disrupting the robbery and stealing his girlfriend, Stanley flees, leaving behind a scrap of cloth from his suit, which turns back into a piece of his pyjamas.

After arresting Tyrell and his henchman, Kellaway finds the piece of cloth and suspects Stanley to be the perpetrator. The next day, Stanley consults Doctor Arthur Neuman, a psychiatrist who has recently published a book on masks and deduces that the mask is a creation of Loki. It is also revealed that the mask's powers are only active during the night. Later that night, Stanley meets Tina at a local park as the Mask, which initially disturbs her, along with being too strong and wild towards her, but he manages to win her over with his charm and sweet nature to the point they are about to kiss until they are interrupted by Kellaway, who attempts to capture him. Stanley flees with Peggy after he manages to distract the police with a mass performance of the titular song from Cuban Pete; she then betrays him to Tyrell, who was released due to insufficient evidence connecting him or his henchmen to the robbery, for a $50,000 bounty. Tyrell dons the mask, becoming a bulky and malevolent green-faced being. Tyrell's henchmen force Stanley to reveal where the stolen money is, before turning him in to the police.

When Tina visits Stanley in the station, he urges her to leave the city. Tina thanks Stanley for showing her kindness and warmth she wasn't used to and tells him he didn't need the mask to be special to her. She attempts to flee, but is kidnapped by Tyrell and forcibly taken to a charity ball at the Coco Bongo, hosted by Niko and attended by the city's elite, including the mayor. Upon arrival, the masked Tyrell kills Niko and prepares to destroy the club with a time bomb. Milo, Stanley's dog, helps Stanley escape from the station by retrieving the keys from the guard. Stanley then sets out to stop Tyrell, taking Kellaway hostage.

After locking Kellaway in his car, Stanley enters the club and manages to enlist the help of Charlie, but is soon after discovered and captured. Tina tricks Tyrell into taking off the mask, which is recovered and donned by Milo, who battles his way through Tyrell's henchmen as Stanley and Tyrell fight against each other. After recovering the mask, Stanley uses it to save Tina by disposing of the bomb seconds before it detonates, and then defeats Tyrell by sending him down the drain of the club's ornamental fountain. The police arrive and arrest Tyrell's henchmen. Kellaway attempts to arrest Stanley again, but the mayor intervenes, telling Kellaway and the police that Tyrell was the Mask all along as a way of releasing Stanley. After Stanley and his allies leave, the mayor informs Kellaway that he needs to have a serious meeting with him in the morning.

The following day, Stanley, now exonerated and not wanting to encounter the police again, decides to dispose of the mask at the harbour, informing Tina that he will henceforth just be himself. She discards it before sharing a kiss with Stanley, to his delight. During this, Charlie tries to retrieve the mask for himself, only for Milo to swim away with it.

Production

Development

In 1989, Mike Richardson and Todd Moyer, who was Executive Vice President of Dark Horse Comics, first approached New Line Cinema about adapting the comic The Mask into a film, after having seen other offers. The main character went through several transformations, and the project was stalled a couple of times.

One unused "Mask" idea, according to Mike Richardson, was to transform the story into one about a mask-maker who took faces off of corpses to put them on teens and turn them into zombies.

Initially intended to become a new horror franchise, New Line Cinema offered the job of directing the film to Chuck Russell. Russell found the violence of the comic to be off-putting, and wanted the film to be less grim and adult-oriented and more fun and family-friendly than the source material.

Writing

Mike Werb says Chuck Russell tapped him after reading his script for Curious George for Imagine. The two decided to turn The Mask into a wild romantic comedy. Mike Werb wrote his first draft of The Mask in less than six weeks, and less than two months later it was green-lit.

According to Mark Verheiden, they had a first draft screenplay for a film version done back in 1990. Verheiden then wrote the second draft in early 1991, adding more humour, and that ended up being the only work he did on The Mask. Veriheiden's revised draft included more instances of fourth wall breaking like "cameos" by critics Siskel and Ebert, and dark content such as excessive bloodshed and sexual assault. The characters Stanley, Kellaway, and Doyle carried into the final film; Stanley's girlfriend Kathleen (inspired by Kathy from the comics) evolved into Tina Carlyle while Scully and Vitelli became Dorian Tyrell and Niko respectively. After that, the film entered development hell.

Casting

In the early stages various actors were suggested as possibilities for the lead role, including Rick Moranis, Martin Short, and Robin Williams. New Line executive Mike DeLuca sent a tape of Jim Carrey performing a sketch from the comedy show In Living Colour to Richardson who was immediately impressed by the contortionist comedian. Director Chuck Russell had seen Carrey perform live at The Comedy Store and followed him on In Living Colour and was keen to cast him in the film. Carrey was top of his list and the script had been rewritten for him but Nicolas Cage and Matthew Broderick were also kept in consideration.

Russell had wanted Anna Nicole Smith as Tina, but she had gone to do Naked Gun 33+1⁄3 instead. A costume director he had worked with had been recommending Cameron Diaz and they got her to audition for the part. The character was originally written as a good girl who is actually bad but after Diaz was cast the part was rewritten to make her genuinely a good person.

Visual Effects

The Mask's visual effects were handled by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and Dream Quest Images. The sequences in the film which involved computer animation were supervised by ILM animation director Wes Takahashi. There were a lot of VFX scenes that had to be cut for budget.

Music

The Mask: Music From the Motion Picture was released on July 26, 1994, on Chaos Records through Sony Music Entertainment. It features music from Xscape, Tony! Toni! Toné!, Vanessa Williams, Harry Connick Jr., Carrey himself and more. The songs "Cuban Pete" and "Hey Pachuco" were also used for the trailer of the 1997 Disney film Flubber.

The record labels TriStar Music and Epic Soundtrax released an orchestral score soundtrack to The Mask after the original soundtrack's release. The score was composed and conducted by Randy Edelman, performed by the Irish Film Orchestra, recorded at Windmill Lane Studios Ireland.

{This is such an earworm, you can't help but dance to it}

Release/Reception/Box Office

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a "Certified Fresh" approval rating of 80% based on reviews from 54 critics, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The site's consensus states: "It misses perhaps as often as it hits, but Jim Carrey's manic bombast, Cameron Diaz's blowsy appeal, and the film's overall cartoony bombast keep The Mask afloat." Metacritic gave it a weighted average score of 56 out of 100 based on reviews from 12 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.

On the television program Siskel & Ebert & the Movies, the critics gave the film "two thumbs up". Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film 3 out of 4 stars, noting Jim Carrey for his "joyful performance."

The film was a box-office success, grossing $119 million domestically and over $350 million worldwide, becoming the second-highest grossing superhero movie at that time, behind Batman. In terms of global gross compared to budget, the film became the most profitable comic book movie of all time. The Mask is one of three films featuring Carrey (the others being Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Dumb and Dumber) released in 1994 that helped launch the actor to superstardom; The Mask was the most successful of these three films both critically and commercially.

Budget $18–23 million

Box office $351.6 million

My Review

It's hard to use Jim Carrey in a movie. He's very good at his rapid-fire mimicry routine, but how can it ever be anything other than a diversion from both character and story? (Very rarely is it a pleasant diversion. `Ace Ventura' was unendurable.) And yet, what else can you do with him?

The `Mask' solves the problem so neatly it almost cheats. The story is ABOUT someone with a double life - so by day, Carrey does all the character and story stuff, and by night, wearing the mask, he does his stand-up schtick. The two are as integrated as they need to be. It's pulled off with such an air of innocence I can't possibly complain. SOME of the clichés (those to do with the police especially) are so very worn out that even the most thorough of movie-goers is surprised to find them still alive; but the writer seems to have been honestly unaware that they were clichés, so that's okay.

I was told that the film is saturated with animation in-jokes. I couldn't spot very many. Stanley-with-the-mask has the soul of a Tex Avery cartoon character: I suspect that's all there is to it. The computer animation, or the computer-enhancement of Carrey's animation, is tastefully done. It never looks pasted over the top of the footage the way so much computer animation does. (`The Mask' failed to win an Oscar in the special effects category - like so many other more deserving films, it was beaten by `Forrest Gump'.) The Cuban dance numbers are irresistible, as is Stanley's pet dog. Sure, `The Mask' is no masterpiece, but it's a clever, charming film that richly deserved its runaway success.

The Mask was a perfect vehicle for Jim Carrey. It not only allowed provided the perfect justification to flamboyantly engage in his rubber-faced antics in a manner even more over-the-top than what he'd become famous for, but it provided an opportunity to stretch his acting chops towards a more serious side at just the right time in his career, paving the way for later work such as Man on the Moon (1999), The Majestic (2001) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004).

The success of the film wholly depends on Carrey, as he has to sell his characters' frenzied insanity so that it's believable as a reflection of Stanley's inner self while at the same time likable but teetering on the edge of becoming obnoxiously overbearing. Of course, the amazing special effects and make-up help, as well as the clever script and more than competent directing and cinematography, but with the wrong actor in the part, the whole affair could have easily collapsed. The other cast members are fine in supporting roles, with Cameron Diaz coming across as being almost otherworldly beautiful, but Carrey is rarely off-screen, and rightly so.

The Mask is notable for both spoofing almost the whole history of cinema while at the same time respectfully paying homage to it. The audience is treated to everything from silent film slapstick to lavish musical numbers (with excellent songs), frenzied Tex Avery-styled animation to gangster film suspense. On its surface, the film is a crazy, often funny, hyperactively paced cinematic pastiche.

The subtext about identity and public faces versus private selves is interesting, but not the focus. It would be fine to explore further, but to do so in this particular film would have taken too much time away from Carrey's surrealistic tour de force. Besides, we've had later films where that subtext has been closer to the heart of a story, such as Catwoman (2004), and where it was very thoroughly and competently dealt with.

Many aspects of The Mask differed from the comic book source material, but this is a case where the changes led to such an excellent result that most people have forgotten about the source material and primarily remember Carrey's performance in this film as definitive.

"The Mask" was the movie that introduced my family to Jim Carrey. And we all thought that it was great. The really great thing about the movie is that they just turn Carrey loose. Anything that you can imagine him doing, he does here. A particularly funny scene is when the police tell him to freeze, you'd better believe that he freezes! All in all, Jim Carrey's humour will never get old. He may have given his all-time funniest performance in "The Mask". 10/10!!!