The Mask

Red = Spoilers 

The Mask is a 1994 superhero comedy about a green-faced Looney Tunes type character that can only transform into himself at night by putting on this old wooden mask. The Mask exaggerated your innermost personality characteristics, turning the main character Stanley Ipkiss, from a walking doormat, into a love crazy charisma machine.  

What’s it about? Stanley Ipkiss, the bank clerk at Edge City bank, is walked all over by everyone. Then, one day, Dorian Tyrell sends his beautiful girlfriend, Tina Carlyle, in to do some recon for an upcoming job he’s planning. Stanley is attracted to Tina, and she is seemingly attracted to him, too. Later, at the Coco Bongo Club, his friend Charlie gets in without him and he’s forced to leave in the beat up loaner car that he got from the mechanic. On his way home, the loaner car breaks down on the bridge, leaving him stranded. He sees what looks like a person in the water, and tries to save them. It turns out to be just a mask in a pile of floating garbage. Back in his apartment, Stanley puts on the mask and turns into a green-faced caricature of a person that can shape-shift at will and perform outrageous stunts whenever and however they’d like. Stanley deduces he can be a superhero with powers like these, but first he wants to get revenge on the mechanics who screwed him over with his car. After that, he decides he’s going to need money to be a superhero, so he decides to rob a bank. The same bank that Stanley works at. And the same bank that Tyrell was planning to rob that very night. On his way out, The Mask alerts the cops and gets Tyrell’s men into a shootout with the cops and gets one of Tyrell’s men shot. He then goes to the Coco Bongo Club and dances with Tina. Tyrell puts a bounty out on The Mask for $50k. Later, in the park, The Mask is meeting with Tina when the cops come and try to capture him. He performs a crazy dance song and escapes while everyone is distracted. The reporter, Peggy, then helps him escape and betrays him to Tyrell for the $50k. Tyrell then turns Stanley into the police wearing a green plastic mask to frame him. Stanley then gets his dog, Milo, to jump through the bars of the jail cell and fetch the keys off the sleeping officer so he can unlock the cell door. While he’s escaping, Lt. Kellaway comes into the station and Stanley has to make his way out pretending to be Kellaway’s prisoner. They make their way over to the Coco Bongo Club where Tina is tied up and Tyrell is prepared to blow the place up with a time bomb. Tina tricks Tyrell in taking the mask off and kicks it towards Stanley, who swallows the bomb, saving the club. He then, flushes Tyrell down the ornamental fountain that he’s wading through.  

What’s good? It’s got its moments. The Mask was a big commercial success. I was never really a fan. It’s not bad. I just wouldn’t watch it more than once.  

What’s bad? The dance scenes. The dance scenes really drag on. Like, how long can you watch somebody dance? That’s a 30 second sequence, tops. There’s no reason for a five-minute bit like there was in this movie.  

The actors? They’re all alright. I have no real problems with anybody. I think Peter Greene might be over-selling it a bit near the end there when he has the Mask on, but that’s just me.  

The effects? Looks like regular CGI for the most part. Nothing outstanding. Anything other than that is just practical. You can see the lines on the back of the mask where it attaches to Jim Carrey’s head.  

You’d think there’d be more communication. For a bunch of guys transporting giant metal pipes from a ship into the ocean, you’d think there’d be more communication between them. They hardly said two words before he dropped that next giant pipe into the ocean. Like, “hey, look out for this giant metal pipe…” 

What are those metal pipes for? What are those metal pipes for, anyways? That’s an awfully large construction project to require pipes of that magnitude. That you need an ocean freighter to carry the pipes over to where you need them so you can drop them off… 

Stanley is simping for some girl at work. Stanley is a walking doormat. He’s stuck in the friendzone. And he’s doing it for a girl that he’s going nowhere with. The classic trope. 

Tina is doing recon on Stanley’s bank. Tina is recording the layout of Stanley’s bank with a secret camera in her purse. That’s why she wanted to talk to Stanley and not Charlie. So she could get a better view of the vault. Poor Charlie. He just can’t catch a break. 

Dorian is planning a coup on his boss. Dorian is planning to take over his boss, Niko. But Niko has underlings all over the place who tell him things, so the same people that work for Dorian, probably work for Niko as well. And there’s no honor among thieves… 

Stanley’s mechanics are screwing him. You never can know what your mechanic is charging you unless you are a mechanic. It’s like the old saying “if you want something do right, you gotta do it yourself…” 

He takes losing his “Porsche” awfully well. The valet drives up with the loaner and Stanley gets mad about it, but he doesn’t demand his Porsche back or anything. He just says how upset he is about losing his Porsche. You’d think he’d put a little more effort into it if he really did lose a Porsche at that nightclub.  

Mrs. Peenman is a real bitch. It must be awful to have Mrs. Peenman as your landlady. It’s like having your grandmother constantly living in the room above yours if you were a teenager.  

Why would you try it again? The mask glowed when he first looked at it. And then, when he put it to his face, it sucked his face into it. So, something clearly not right was going to happen if he put this thing on. Why would you put it on again unless you wanted something not right to happen? 

Jim Carrey was the perfect fit for this role. Jim Carrey really was the perfect fit for this role. A consummate physical comedian, Jim Carrey is the master of facial expressions and contortions and everything else that makes physical comedy work. A character like The Mask needs somebody who does physical comedy to make it work. But also, somebody to play the part of Stanley Ipkiss. That mild mannered, doormat kind of character.  

He gets revenge first. He says that he can be a superhero with these new powers, but first he wants to get revenge on the mechanics who screwed him over with his car and gave him the loaner that broke down on the bridge. And then he goes and shoves fenders up their tailpipes. Not a real superhero move.  

No, and you can quote me. That’s a good cop line. More cops should adopt that. In that specific situation where a reporter is talking to a detective, they have that one line that they can use.  

The same as stealing. How exactly is being late the same as stealing? I mean, you can reach in the register and grab a whole lot more in a handful than you could by just coming in late. Let’s be honest.  

Why did Niko cut Dorian a Break? If Niko was a crime boss, why did he cut Dorian a break? Why was he being so nice? You’d think he would’ve just killed him. Isn’t that what crime bosses do? Kill people who go up against them? It seems like Niko is a very ineffectual crime boss. 

A week’s a really long time. Not only did he cut Dorian a break, but he gave him a week to get out of town. A week is a really long time. Not just a day or two, but an entire week. Like, how did Niko ever become a crime boss? He seems like the nicest guy ever.  

They get caught NOT robbing a bank. Because of The Mask coming out of the bank at the exact same time Dorian’s guys were about to go in, simply by coincidence, Dorian’s guys actually got caught NOT robbing the bank and got in a shootout with the cops for literally no reason other than being there while The Mask was making his escape.  

That dancing scene is way too long. The dancing scene at the Coco Bong with The Mask and Tina is way too long. It goes on for like five minutes. There’s no reason for that. It’s not even that funny of a bit. I get the whole lead in with the zoot-suit and everything, but that doesn’t make it work.  

He gets a piece of Stanley’s pajamas. I guess I just figured if everything else on The Mask is rubber and cartoonish, how come his tie shot off like that? Shouldn’t that be cartoonish like everything else is? How about a little continuity? 

Dorian puts a bounty out on Stanley. Dorian starts out at $50k for the bounty. That’s a big bounty for right away. He hasn’t even gotten away a couple of times or anything.  

Stanley grows a spine. The real-life Stanley grows a spine and starts talking back to people. Like his boss at the bank, the son of the bank-owner. Who apparently has been embezzling funds and hiding them from the IRS for years. 

There’s a Landfill Park? The only reason I can imagine you would name a park Landfill Park is because there either is or was a landfill there. And that would mean that they built the park ON TOP OF a landfill… 

He was really trying to rape her there. The Mask was really going for some Pepe Le Pew kind of sexual predatory thing there in the park. Like, if I were some random people walking by, I would immediately assume that girl was getting raped by that green faced weirdo, because she clearly couldn’t get away. 

What took the cops so long? And why did the cops take so long before they intervened? They let Tina struggle for a good three or four minutes before they were like “okay, let’s go… now!” 

Doyle wanted to dance. Doyle really wanted to dance, but Kellaway wouldn’t let him. Why not? Doyle was gonna break out and mamba, but Kellaway threatened to blow his brains out… 

Why take the mask off? After the big dance number, Stanley takes the mask off when Peggy pulls up in her car. Why take it off? It gives him superpowers. It’s stupid to take it off.  

Peggy sells out Stanley. Peggy sells out Stanley for the bounty that Dorian put out on him. And then when she says to Dorian “you promised you wouldn’t hurt him!” She’s surprised when he says, “I lied”. He literally put a bounty out on him. What did you think he was going to do to him? 

He’s trying to get Milo to jump 10 feet in the air. The window to the jail cell is 10 feet in the air. Dogs can’t jump that high. Maybe Milo can. I don’t know. Maybe Milo is just an impressive dog… 

The war orphan’s money. I don’t think the money in that giant pig was gonna go to war orphans in the first place… 

How stupid can you be? Tina played the old Honeypot on Dorian. She seduced him into taking off the mask and then kicked it out of his hands. The oldest trick in the book. 

Why throw it away? The item gives you almost limitless powers. Why throw it away? Charlie knew it’s worth and went into the ocean to get it after Stanley it in there. Only Milo came away with it, first. I don’t know if Milo came up with it or not. But that’s neither here nor there… 

So, yeah. Go and see The Mask. It’s an alright flick for a couple hours of fun. It’s not the greatest thing Jim Carrey ever did. But they can’t all be the greatest, now, can they? And as always, keep on watching, with a smile on your face…