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Apparently New Line Cinema didn't learn their lesson the last time they tried to make a Jim Carrey sequel sans Jim Carrey. The result was a horrid and laughless abomination called Dumb & Dumberer, a sequel that made its predecessor look like the collected works of Stephen Hawking by comparison. But simple logic often runs counter to easy greed, which explains why we're now offered a Carrey-less sequel to The Mask, which, by the way, would have been a pretty wretched movie without the leading man and his endless pools of manic energy.

So yeah: if you ever wondered what The Mask would look like if you sucked Jim Carrey out of the equation, here's your answer - and it ain't pretty. In lieu of Carrey and his patented brand of innate lunacy, the sequel presents CGI babies! Yeah, as if the two Baby Geniuses aberrations weren't bad enough...they're now inspiring their own knock-offs.

The paper-thin plot offers Jamie Kennedy as a sad-sack young husband, an animator who can't catch a break at the office. But once he dons a magical mask, he becomes a huge obnoxious hit at the office Christmas party. He then has sex with his wife, thus creating a super-Mask-type baby who can do all sorts of wacky computer-generated things. Oh, and there's also Alan Cumming as a shriekingly obnoxious "god of mischief" who must return the mask to the netherworld or risk the wrath of his demanding father.

But I didn't even get to the dog yet....

Nearly all of Son of the Mask is soaked through with garish FX gags and obvious looks at the "funnier" side of bowel movements, streaming urine, and bitten crotches. (But by all means, bring the tots.) The "plot" exists as nothing more than the flimsiest of frameworks, a nominal construction used to prop up a ceaseless deluge of moronic eye candy and underwhelming special effects. It's clear that director Larry Gutterman (director of Cats & Dogs, which looks like the original Babe compared to this noxious creation) wanted this unwelcome sequel to come off like a "live-action cartoon" - but there's a good reason that Bugs Bunny and Woody Woodpecker films run only four minutes in length.

By the time we're an hour in to Son of the Mask we've been tossed through the CG ringer and spit out on the other side with no steak to go with our soda. This flick is nothing but cacophonous and blithering eye candy...and the candy's not all that well-cooked to begin with. Try and count how many times we're treated to the "whirly-spinny" effect made famous by that most respected of thespians, Mr. Tasmanian Devil. That project might be the only way you'll stay awake throughout this terrible and ill-conceived little afterthought of a money-grab, in-name-only, CGI reel of a sequel.

If, however, you still find yourself rolling on the floor whenever a TV baby's "lips" are used to form actual words of slang and sarcasm, then by all means consider 'Son of the Mask" your next all-time favorite. What's saddest about the whole obnoxious affair is that lead actor Jamie Kennedy seems to be trying really hard. It's like watching a guy on the Titanic trying to save the ship using only a sponge and a bucket.

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originally posted: 02/18/05 01:45:02
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