Fellman's Movie Reviews

Red = Spoilers 

Ace Ventura 2: When Nature Calls is the sequel to Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. It follows the pet detective to Africa where he’s charged with finding a sacred bat to stop two African tribes from killing each other. I don’t think this movie is as funny as the first one. A lot of it is still pretty funny though. It’s still a good comedy. I just think the first one is better.  

What’s it about? We start with a helicopter, flying up the side of a mountain, until it finds Ace, climbing up, refusing to stop until he rescues a racoon that’s trapped at the top. He makes his way and straps the racoon to himself with some climbing gear and begins to climb across to another mountain in a satire of the movie “Cliffhanger”. The racoon’s strap breaks, and Ace tries his hardest, but eventually loses the poor little thing to the heights of the mountain, causing Ace to turn to a monastery and become a monk. The British agent Greenwall makes the climb to the monastery to find Ace and is eventually helped by another monk to find Ace and get him to leave the monastery. Greenwall tells Ace about the two tribes that are set to marry their prince and princess, but with the loss of their great white bat as a dowry to pass between the tribes, the wedding can’t proceed as planned. Ace is supposed to find the bat, but apparently has a large fear of them. He goes around, eliminating suspects he figures to have taken the bat. He gets chased through the forest and shot with poisoned darts until he passes out and wakes up in the Wachati camp. He takes Ouda, the Wachati Prince with him as a translator and they go to the Wachootoo camp to see if they can sneak in. They end up getting caught and Ace is forced to go through a series of trials. He passes them all and finishes with his final trial of “The Circle of Death” against the Wachootoo Prince, who beats him handily. This entertains the Wachootoo and they befriend Ace. They let Ace and Ouda go but tell him if the bat isn’t returned by noon the next day, they will slaughter the Wachati. On the way out, Ace is shot in the butt by a non-poisonous dart and the Wachootoo laugh about it. Ace compares the dart to the darts he was shot with before and sees a difference. He traces the original dart to two Australian poachers, who he tricks with a silverback gorilla mating call. They don’t fall for his trick, however, and tie him to a raft and send him over a waterfall. After surviving, he wrestles a Nile crocodile and continues to try and figure out how the poachers are connected. After meditating, he uses astral projection to connect with a monk at the monastery he was at previously and gets advice about the case, learning a developer named Cadby might be responsible. Ace goes to confront Cadby and reveals his entire plan when he finds out that the security chief Hitu was in on it the whole time and Ace was to be Cadby’s alibi that he tried to stop the tribes from killing each other. After escaping with the bat, Ace chases after him in a monster truck that he found at Cadby’s, eventually crashing Cadby’s car and getting the bat back to the tribes in time to stop them from killing each other.  

What’s good? It’s funny. It’s an entertaining script. He’s as weird and crazy as he is in the first one. I think he’s a little more exaggerated in this one because it’s a sequel and they’re trying to play off of what worked.  

What’s bad? They’re not the greatest effects. Even the practical ones could be done better. I mean, I know he’s not literally wrestling an actual Nile crocodile. So, maybe what they did on that was the best they could at the time? 

The acting? Jim Carrey has always been one of the best actors. In any role. Whether it’s comedy, or anything else. Given that, there’s nothing really bad to say about anybody else in the movie as far as acting goes. 

The effects? I think as far as 1994 goes, this was pretty average. It’s nothing too spectacular. But at the same time, it’s really not all that great, either.  

How did he get up there? How did Ace get up that mountain in the first place? They had to fly that helicopter up that mountain looking for him. Did he climb all the way up there himself? That’s a long way up.  

He said don’t look down. He specifically told that racoon not to look down. And immediately after he said, “don’t look down”, that raccoon looked down. It was like, 100% his fault. If he would just listen to directions… 

What a disgusting custom. Why would you spit in someone’s face as a sign of respect? Who would come up with a custom like that? That’s just disgusting… 

Why’s the monkey a guard? Who picked the monkey as a guard? Why not an actual person? That monkey was bound to mess up sooner or later. It was really their fault. 

Do they have to do that whenever they hear the word? Do they have to kneel every time they hear somebody say “Shakaka”? Because that would get real annoying, real fast.  

How long does he shoot spitballs? Does he just keep hitting that guy with spitballs the entire time he’s out there? How can a guy stand there for five days in a row? That’s not physically possible. Does he just stand there until his leg gives out? What kind of test is that? He’s awfully high up. Wouldn’t he die on his way down? 

How did they let that rhino get so close? Why would Quinn and that other guy let a rhino get so close to them? Wouldn’t they be like “hey… Isn’t that rhino getting awfully close to us?” Because, you know, rhinos are large and aggressive animals… 

Why would you even want to watch that? Why would you stop to watch a baby rhino being born? Is that really something you would want to stop and see? You couldn’t think that’s going to be an appealing looking picture.  

That’s clearly not a baby rhino. When he was coming out the back of that mechanical rhino, that was clearly not a baby rhino. Those people had to be like, “something’s clearly not right here…” 

That’s all it took? Pushing his eye like that? It didn’t really take a whole lot to make Quinn talk. Teasing him like that was a pretty weak persuasion tactic and he gave up the information pretty quickly.  

Why would he take the mask off? Not only did he take the mask off in front of the entire Wachootoo tribe, but they would’ve known he wasn’t one of them anyway, because he wasn’t wearing a shirt, and he was the only one there with white skin. That whole Equincu Orcha thing… 

Why didn’t that guy move off those coals? Why would that guy just lay on those coals like that and let Ace walk over him. You’d think he would move when he got pushed down.  

Equincu Orcha. “I couldn’t help but notice that Equincu Orcha part… Did you just refer to me as White Devil?” “This how they know you…” “Leave that part out next time…” One of my favorite lines of the movie… 

Are they literally pulling that guys organs out? Is that one of the trials? Do they have to pull somebody’s organs out every time somebody goes through these trials? Harsh trials… 

Where’d that monster truck come from? What was that monster truck doing there, anyway? There was just some random monster truck sitting in front of Cadby’s place. There wasn’t even an explanation for it. It was just written into the script. “Oh, Ace finds a monster truck…” 

They all stopped when the bat came through. It’s a good thing they all have to kneel when that bat comes by, or somebody says “Shakaka” so they all had to quit fighting for two seconds when Ace came running through with the bat in time to put it back in its cage.  

Is that silverback having sex with Cadby? I take it that silverback was mating with Cadby in that bush, then? Hence all the rustling? Poor Cadby… 

They consummate in front of the tribe? What kind of custom is that? They get married and then consummate in front of the whole tribe? Who started that tradition? Aren’t you glad that isn’t a thing here? That’d be kind of weird at weddings… 

So, yeah. Go and see Ace Ventura 2: When Nature Calls. It’s a great comedy and a great sequel. And one of the few great movies you’ll see about pet detectives. And as always, keep on watching, with a smile on your face…