The Mask (film)

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The Mask
Movie poster
Directed by	Chuck Russell
Produced by	Alex McMaster
Written by	Michael Fallon (story) Mark Verheiden (story) Mike Werb
Starring	Jim Carrey Cameron Diaz Peter Greene Richard Jeni Peter Riegert Amy Yasbeck Orestes Matacena
Music by	Randy Edelman
Cinematography	John R. Leonetti
Editing by	Arthur Coburn
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date(s)	July 29, 1994
Running time	97 min.
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$23 million
Followed by	Son of the Mask
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

The Mask is an Oscar-nominated comedy film, based on a series of comic books published by Dark Horse Comics. This film was directed by Chuck Russell, produced by Dark Horse Entertainment and New Line Cinema, and originally released to movie theatres in 1994. The film stars Jim Carrey as Stanley Ipkiss (also known as The Mask).

A sequel, Son of the Mask, was released in theaters in 2005 to box office failure and critical disapproval.

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Reaction
4 Cultural and literary allusions
5 Trivia
6 Soundtrack
7 References
8 External link

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The film centers around two men who live in Edge City. The first is a bank clerk named Stanley Ipkiss, a shy, luckless romantic who is regularly bullied by nearly everyone around him: his boss, landlady and even car mechanics; his only friends are his cocky but good-natured co-worker Charlie and his small but heroic dog Milo. The second man is an ambitious gangster named Dorian Tyrell who runs the exclusive Coco Bongo nightclub, but is plotting to move onto bigger things, namely the overthrow of his crimelord boss Niko. The two men's paths cross when Tyrell sends his singer girlfriend Tina Carlyle into Stanley's bank with a hidden camera, as part of Tyrell's plan to rob the establishment.

Stanley is immediately smitten by Tina and she seems possibly interested in him as well, but this is the only good thing to happen to him during this particularly miserable day, which ends with him fishing a mysterious wooden mask out of the city's filthy harbor and taking it home with him. When he impulsively puts on the mask, it wraps itself around his head, and brings forth the repressed side of his personality: a wackily-suited green-skinned wildman ("The Mask") who cheerfully proceeds to get revenge on some of Stanley's tormentors, along with turning the tables on a luckless street gang which attempts to terrorize him. The next morning, a repentant Stanley tosses the mask out his window, but it boomerangs unnoticed back into his apartment.

Stanley procceeds to have run-ins with world-weary Edge City policeman Lieutenant Kellaway and hustling newspaper reporter Peggy Brandt, both of whom are investigating the Mask's activities of the previous night. Despite these threats, the temptation to again use the re-discovered mask is overwhelming, and that night he puts it back on. Planning to attend one of Tina's performances at the Coco Bongo, the Mask manages to noisily interrupt Tyrell's bank robbery and make off with the cash; Tyrell's close friend and pointman on the job ends up being shot dead by police responding to the disturbance. The Mask uses some of the money to buy his way into the Coco Bongo, where he "rocks the joint", exuberantly dancing with Tina in front of the cheering clientele before being confronted by Tyrell. The Mask literally bounces away, while Tyrell is temporarily arrested by Kellaway, who finds a piece of Stanley's distinctive pajamas left behind at the scene.

The next day Stanley meets with an expert on masks, who tells him the object is a depiction of Loki, the Norse god of darkness and mischief. Despite this, and with both Tyrell and Kellaway hunting down his trail, a more-confident Stanley arranges for Tina to meet his "friend" the Mask at the local Landfill Park. The meeting does not go well, with Tina being scared away by the Mask's overly-forward advances, and Kellaway then appearing on the scene to arrest him for the bank robbery. The Mask toys with the enraged officer, zooms out of the park and magics a large chunk of the Edge City police force into joining him in staging an impromptu mass-performance of the song Cuban Pete. Peggy drives up and helps Stanley escape, but then turns him over to Tyrell in exchange for a briefcase full of reward money. Tyrell tries on the mask, becoming a truly demonic troll-figure. Stanley is literally dumped into Kellaway's lap with a cheap green mask and is thrown in jail.

Tina visits Stanley in his cell, where he urges her to flee Tyrell and the city. She attempts to do so, but is captured by Tyrell and dragged along on his raid on a big charity ball at the Coco Bongo, attended by the city's elite (and Charlie), and hosted by Niko. Niko is killed, and Mask-Tyrell prepares to blow up both the club and Tina. With Milo's help, Stanley kidnaps Kellaway, breaks out of jail and goes to rescue her. After some brief initial success, he is captured. Tina manages to trick Tyrell into taking off the mask, which gets kicked into the air. Milo sticks his head into the mask, and the resulting pitbull assists Stanley in beating down Tyrell and his henchmen. Stanley retrieves the mask, and wears it one last time, swallowing the bomb and literally flushing Tyrell down the drain. The city's mayor, witnessing most of this, thinks that Tyrell was the Mask all along, and calls off Kellaway.

The following morning, Stanley, Tina, Milo and Charlie take the mask back down to the harbor, where Stanley and Tina toss the object into the water. As they kiss and the credits roll, Charlie jumps in after it, only to find Milo swimming away with it.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Cast

Jim Carrey as Stanley Ipkiss/The Mask
Peter Riegert as Lt. Mitch Kellaway
Peter Greene as Dorian Tyrell/Dorian Loki Tyrell
Cameron Diaz as Tina Carlyle
Orestes Matacena as Niko
Richard Jeni as Charlie Schumaker
Amy Yasbeck as Peggy Brandt
Ben Stein as Dr. Arthur Neuman
Reginald E. Carthey as Freeze
Denis Forest as Sweet Eddy
Nancy Fish as Mrs. Peenman

[edit] Reaction

The movie was a box-office success, grossing over 350 million dollars worldwide^[1]. Critics also approved of the movie^[2], including Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times which gave the film 3 stars, noting Carrey for his "joyful performance."^[3]. The film was nominated for Best Visual Effects at the 67th Academy Awards, but lost to Forrest Gump. The film currently holds a 79% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes.^[2]

[edit] Cultural and literary allusions

The Mask imitates the Looney Tunes characters Bugs Bunny (dying in the arms of the mobster) and Taz (spinning in a tornado), and the performance of him watching Tina in the Coco Bongo is similar to the wolf in Red Hot Riding Hood (which Stanley is seen watching in the movie earlier on). Many of the imitations come from those shorts directed by Tex Avery.

In Stanley's apartment, a cushion with Taz's figure can be seen. Additionally, the interior of his desk drawer (which we see at the beginning of the film when he removes the concert tickets) features a Looney Tunes calendar.

The laugh performed by "The Mask" toward the end of the movie (after revealing his guns were loaded with nothing more than signs reading "Bang!"), is reminiscent of Carrey's Fire Marshal Bill character from In Living Color.

At the end of the movie, "The Mask" performs a famous line by Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry by saying "Now, you got to ask yourself one question. 'Do I feel lucky?' Well do ya, punks?". Carrey routinely performed impressions of Eastwood in his stand-up comedy routines and appeared in bit parts in Eastwood-headlined flicks Pink Cadillac and The Dead Pool, the latter of which was a Dirty Harry film.

Ben Stein appears in the movie as "Dr. Arthur Neuman," author of a book titled The Masks We Wear. He is the only character from this movie to appear in its sequel Son of the Mask.

[edit] Trivia

This article contains a trivia section.
Content in this section should be integrated into other appropriate areas of the article or removed, and the trivia section removed.

The scene where Stanley pulls out a wet condom and says, "Wrong pocket!" was improvised by Carrey.

As Stanley (as the Mask) runs off after singing Cuban Pete, he passes an old lady near an alley and kisses her. This was an ad-lib of Jim Carrey. The old lady had no idea that she would be kissed.

The Ripley Auto Finishing building is also used in Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II as the Ghostbusters' headquarters.

Cameron Diaz's shoes

In the scene where The Mask kisses Tina and her shoes fly off, Cameron Diaz slipped them off and kicked them off but it wasn't funny enough so wire was tied to the heels and her shoes were pulled off at high speed. Cameron Diaz said that the shoes were "the most uncomfortable pair of shoes she ever wore" and recalled wearing them whilst filming In Her Shoes.

Carrey's salary for this movie was $450,000. The Mask is one of three Carrey films released in 1994-1995 that helped launch the actor to superstardom (the other films being Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Dumb and Dumber).

The song "Cuban Pete" was originally performed by Desi Arnez in the 1946 movie of the same name, it was later also performed by Desi and Lucille Ball on a episode of the classic 50's show "I Love Lucy".

[edit] Soundtrack

Professional reviews
The Mask: Music From The Motion Picture

Soundtrack by Various artists
Released	July 26, 1994
Label	Sony
All Music Guide link Entertainment Weekly B 08/05/94