Jim Carrey was once possibly the most well-known person on the globe. He's now an independently affluent painter and cynical eccentric who also happens to be a deliberately famous movie star. Is he a little odd? Oh, yes. But, come on, it’s Jim Carrey, what else could you expect from him?
Perhaps Jim Carrey is your favorite celebrity of all time. Perhaps you're suffering from Carrey fatigue from the 1990s. Regardless, no one, including Jim Carrey, can deny his standing as a completely unique figure in popular culture. He carved out a unique niche for himself as an actor: no one had ever done Jim Carrey's job before him, and — sorry, Ryan Reynolds — no one will ever be able to replace him.
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
Jim Carrey went from a little actor to a giant of cinematic humor with the surprise hit "Ace Ventura." Critics, on the other hand, weren't exactly enamored with it when it first came out. Furthermore, some of us who were shattered by Ace's antics at the time has subsequently revisited the video and learned that a guy talking with his butt is no longer the funniest thing that has ever happened.
Following the success of "Ace," Carrey went on to make several films, like "Man on the Moon," that show he can do more than gross-out slapstick.
That was a wise decision: "Ace Ventura" may have amused audiences and catapulted him to international fame, but he wouldn't have achieved the same level of fame if he'd only ever been the "Ace Ventura" dude.
Sonic The Hedgehog
It's perplexing that Jim Carrey hasn't played more villains in children's films. Sure, he's played the Riddler and Count Olaf, but you'd think the guy with the rubber face would have devoted his career to playing kid-friendly villains for at least a decade. At the very least, we have "Sonic the Hedgehog," which permits Carrey to play Dr. Robotnik, who is pretentious, obnoxious, and off-putting.
"Sonic the Hedgehog" received favorable reviews. They could, in part, be the result of low expectations. Even ignoring the shambles surrounding early reactions to the eponymous character's design, video game films have a poor track record. "Sonic" is nothing more or less than a reliable, basic timepiece.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Do you want to see how ironic the universe can be? Jim Carrey plays the straight man while someone else tells the jokes in what is perhaps his career apex.
Joel Barish is as far from Carrey's flailing 90s persona as you can get. He's shy, aw-shucks-y, and passive-aggressive. By 2004, though, audiences had essentially agreed to have their memories of Ace Ventura erased. The fact that "Eternal Sunshine" was screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's follow-up to Being John Malkovich (1999) and Adaptation (2001) was a much bigger selling factor at the time than Carrey's participation.
The Truman Show
About a decade before social media and online celebrities were a thing, The Truman Show practically predicted the lifestyle of every social media celebrity. The Truman Show remains very current as possibly the most immediately predictive Hollywood film of the previous few decades, despite its modest box office success compared to Carrey's other '90s smashes.
Truman Burbank is the star of a television show he is completely unaware of, having spent his whole life in a studio disguised as a little village, surrounded by actors posing as his friends and family. Truman can't know the reality because of the vast sums of advertising money he obliviously rakes in, and he's certainly not permitted to leave.
Carrey plays the sole normal person — it's the world he lives in that's become tasteless and crazy. Carrey has earned massive star status and personal wealth by portraying a series of lunatic morons. One may say that the film encapsulates Jim Carrey's entire film career: he is at his finest when he isn't trying to be Jim Carrey.