Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995) Review:

A year before this sequel, we were introduced to Ace Ventura; a rude, wise cracking pet detective who has the reputation for being the ONLY pet detective. Guess what? He's back and still has every quality he had in the original. I know, it sounds like there's a catch here. Well there is not-at least with Jim Carrey's character.

This, is more funny than,...

I did not like this movie as much as the original for one reason and one reason only. No it wasn't that Courtney Cox didn't reprise her role as Melissa Robinson. That I can deal with. My problem was that the story involved some characters that made Ace Ventura's character seem stupid. What made the original funny was that Ace Ventura was on top of his game. He knew what he was doing and how he was doing it. What also made it funny was that nobody ELSE knew what he was doing and although it seemed strange, Ventura got the job done. This occurred throughout the entire first film. And that's how it goes for most of this movie.

The part of the movie that I think either did not need to be added or could have been modified was when Ace Ventura was among the African Tribes. What was so hard for me grasp was that in the first movie, they took a smart crazy detective and put him around a bunch of normal people that understood nothing of what he did. When Ventura is around the Tribe members, he is the dumb crazy detective. Why do I say this? Because Jim Carrey's character does not speak their language. It is this major flaw of why some of the laughs fail in this movie for me.

.......this on screen. Believe me folks.

For example, when Ventura starts to eat the food at the tribe's festival, he does not realize what he was eating until he is told what it really was. I thought Ventura was the smart one here? The whole point of the first film was so that the joke would be on everyone else; now the roles are switched? Why? Does the laugh really need to be on our comedic hero? It was at that point I started to wonder whether Ace really knew what he was doing.

Of course these kinds of instances did not happen all the time. There were many parts where Ventura was surrounded by upper class people who thought they were better than he was and just like the first film he proved them wrong with a snotty remark and an obscene gesture. That's the old Ace I know! That is what made Ace Ventura such a character.

Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls is almost a perfect sequel. It still has good laughs but it is dumbed down by its mediocre screenplay. It is because of this that Ace Ventura does not seem always on top of everyone else like he was in the first film.

Points Earned --> 7:10