Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
To be a Pet Detective, you have to understand both the criminals and animals. Ace Ventura goes even further... He behaves like a criminal animal. When a football team's mascot (a dolphin) is stolen just before the Superbowl, Ace Ventura is put on the case. Now, who would want to steal a dolphin, and why?
Razorbitz reviewedJuly 23, 2025
Did not live up to how I remembered it.
Watched it with my partner who loves Jim Carrey but had never seen either Pet Detectives and we came away mixed. There are certainly some great bits strewn throughout with pretty much anything involving his apartment animal group being the standout, but the actual moment to moment humor is left in this awkward lurch of forced, annoying gonzo that lands only some of the time. Most of our sparse laughter was in the middle but the beginning and ending failed to get much out of me except second hand embarrassment.
I also had forgotten just how steeped in Miami Dolphins lore this film is; while the numerous dated references on occassion landed for us (A fun pre-reboot Mission: Impossible joke here, a Poltergeist reference there) the Dolphins mystery that Ace gets involved in at points has some fairly compelling moments. Written as a parody of the hard boiled detective tales of that era I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the actual mystery and the parodic infiltration of the rich and powerful. In that sense I found Ace Ventura at his best as a detective solving things in the most obnoxious ways possible while showing a base level competence that kept the plot moving.
Unfortunately the ending suffers from the most dated sequence of elements I've ever seen, revolving around Dan Marino's kidnapping and the "twist" villain that left a bad taste in my mouth--just as it seemed to have caused for everyone else in the film, for different reasons. I guess I won't spoil it but the sentiment of "tHEy dOn'T mAkE COmedY's LikE tHey uSeD tO" isn't always a good thing, and this is one of those endings that have a lot of creative ideas that I genuinely thought would go for something more cartoonish (see: the rest of the movie) like yanking the mask off and revealing a completely different person--that I was on board for--instead of the very overdone tropey conclusion that we got. It plays out like a Scooby Doo moment GONE WRONG GONE SEXUAL with the entire
On a personal note, as much as I try to go back to this era of comedy, I really can't seem to click with it as much as my 13 year old self. Whenever Jim Carrey talks with his butt or shouts a famous line from some popular film, I would feel my age more than laughter in my chest. I guess that's just me though.
I would say we still overall enjoyed the film and can look past a lot of the more dated and obnoxious elements, but depending on how much nostalgia you might have I would say your mileage will vary. It's hard to believe this and The Mask came out the same year, and in that way Ace Ventura is a great companion piece to emphasize just how dominant Carrey was in the 90s. A decent Carrey vehicle in all but I doubt I will be watching this again any time soon.