| The Mask | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Chuck Russell |
| Produced by | Bob Engelman |
| Screenplay by | Mike Werb |
| Story by | Michael Fallon Mark Verheiden |
| Starring | Jim Carrey Peter Riegert Peter Greene Amy Yasbeck Richard Jeni Cameron Diaz |
| Music by | Randy Edelman |
| Cinematography | John R. Leonetti |
| Editing by | Arthur Coburn |
| Studio | New Line Cinema Dark Horse Entertainment |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
| Release date(s) | July 29, 1994 |
| Running time | 101 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $23 million |
| Box office | $351,583,407 |
The Mask is a 1994 American superhero comedy film based on a series of comic books published by Dark Horse Comics. This film was directed by Chuck Russell, and produced by Dark Horse Entertainment and New Line Cinema, and originally released to movie theatres on July 29, 1994. The film stars Jim Carrey as Stanley Ipkiss (also The Mask). The film's supporting cast includes Peter Greene as mafia officer Dorian Tyrell, Amy Yasbeck as a newspaper reporter, Peter Riegert and Jim Doughan as two police detectives, Richard Jeni as Stanley's friend, Orestes Matacena as nightclub owner and mafia boss Niko, Ben Stein as a psychologist, and Cameron Diaz in her feature film debut as Stanley's love interest Tina Carlyle. Carrey was nominated for a Golden Globe for his role. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, but lost to Forrest Gump.
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Protagonist Stanley Ipkiss (Jim Carrey), a clerk in an Edge City bank, is a shy, luckless romantic regularly bullied by nearly everyone around himself, whose only friends are his Jack Russell Terrier Milo and his co-worker Charlie Schumaker (Richard Jeni). Meanwhile, gangster Dorian Tyrell (Peter Greene) operates a nightclub while plotting to overthrow his boss Niko (Orestes Matacena). Tyrell sends his singer girlfriend Tina Carlyle (Cameron Diaz) into Stanley's bank to record its arrangement, in preparation to rob the bank.
Stanley is attracted to Tina, and she seems to reciprocate. Later that night, at the city's harbor, he finds a mysterious wooden mask, which when he dons it changes him into a zoot-suited, green-faced trickster able to act with immense impunity, who exacts comical revenge on some of Stanley's tormentors and scares a street gang that attempt to rob him.
The next morning, Stanley encounters detective Lieutenant Kellaway (Peter Riegert) and newspaper reporter Peggy Brandt (Amy Yasbeck) investigating the Mask's activity. Despite these threats, he again becomes the Mask; and needing money to attend Tina's performance, steals the money sought by Tyrell. At Tyrell's club, the Mask dances exuberantly with Tina. At the end of the dance, the Mask gives Tina a kiss; but is then confronted by Tyrell, and flees, leaving behind a scrap of cloth belonging to himself.
Kellaway accuses Stanley of the bank-robbery; but Stanley escapes trouble and later consults an expert on masks named Arthur Neumann (Ben Stein), who tells him that the object is a depiction of Loki, the Norse god of darkness and mischief. Despite this, Stanley arranges for Tina to meet the Mask at the local Landfill Park. The meeting goes badly when the Mask's advances scare Tina and Lt. Kellaway attempts to arrest him. The Mask then toys with the officer before leaving the park and tricking a large group of Edge City police officers into joining him in a mass-performance of the song Cuban Pete. Stanley having removed the mask, Peggy helps him escape, but betrays him to Tyrell for a $50,000 bounty. Tyrell tries on the mask and becomes a demonic monster. Forced to reveal the location of the stolen money, Stanley is kept hostage in one of the mob's cars while Tyrell's henchmen reclaim the money, and later given to Kellaway to be imprisoned.
When Tina visits Stanley in prison, he urges her to flee the city, and Tina in return thanks Stanley for treating her with respect. She attempts to leave the city, but is pursued by Orlando (Nils Allen Stewart) and cornered by Tyrell, who takes her to his raid of a charity ball hosted by Niko and attended by the city's elite, including the city's mayor Mitchell Tilton (Ivory Ocean). Upon arrival, the Masked Tyrell kills Niko and prepares to destroy both the club and Tina. Milo helps Stanley escape prison, and they, bringing Lt. Kellaway as a cover and hostage, go to stop Tyrell.
After brief initial success securing the assistance of Charlie, Stanley is spotted by Orlando and captured. Tina tricks Tyrell into taking off the mask, which is recovered and donned by Milo, turning the dog into a cartoonish pitbull who defeats Tyrell's men, while Stanley fights Tyrell. Stanley then recovers the mask and uses its abilities to save Tina by swallowing Tyrell's bomb and flushing Tyrell down the drain of the club's ornamental fountain. The police arrive and arrest Tyrell's remaining henchmen; whereupon Mayor Tilton explains that Tyrell was the Mask the whole time as a way for Kellaway to let Stanley go and Tilton needs to see Kellaway in the morning.
As the sun rises, Stanley, Tina, Milo, and Charlie take the mask back down to the harbor, where Tina throws it into the water. Charlie attempts to retrieve the mask for himself, only to find Milo swimming away with it.
The film was a box-office success, grossing $119 million domestically and over $350 million worldwide, becoming the second-highest grossing superhero movie at that time, behind Batman. Even though it had been out-grossed by several superhero movies throughout the years, it remains immensely popular, especially among children. Critics also approved of the film, including Roger Ebert, of the Chicago Sun-Times, who gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, noting Jim Carrey for his "joyful performance."[1] The Mask is one of three films featuring Carrey (the others being Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Dumb and Dumber) released in 1994 that helped launch the actor to superstardom, though The Mask was the most successful of these three films both critically and commercially.
The film was nominated for Best Visual Effects at the 67th Academy Awards, but lost to Forrest Gump. In addition, Carrey was nominated for a Golden Globe. It currently holds a 75% "Certified Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a consensus stating "It misses perhaps as often as it hits, but Carrey's manic bombast, Diaz's blowsy appeal, and the film's overall cartoony bombast keep The Mask afloat."
At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from film critics, it has a rating score of 56, indicating "mixed or average reviews" based on 12 reviews.
When "shot" at the first scene inside the Coco Bongo, the Mask's consequent "dying" dialogue references several classic literary moments:
| The Mask: Music from the Motion Picture |
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| Soundtrack album by Various artists | |
| Released | July 26, 1994 |
| Label | Sony |
The orchestral score soundtrack to The Mask was released shortly after the original soundtrack's release. The score was composed and conducted by Randy Edelman and performed by the Irish Film Orchestra.
The film was released on DVD by New Line Cinema. It was later released Blu-ray Disc on December 9, 2008.[5] It has an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and is encoded in 1080p/VC-1. Its audio is a 5.1 Dolby TrueHD encoded at a 16/48 kHz bit and sample rate. The disc has multiple supplementary packages including additional scenes, production details and two commentary tracks, one by director Chuck Russell and the other by director Chuck Russell and the rest of the production crew.
Shortly after the release of The Mask, it was announced in Nintendo Power that Carrey would be returning in a sequel called The Mask II. The magazine held a contest, with the winner being an extra in the film, but, due to Jim Carrey declining to reprise his role, the project never came to fruition. In a 1995 Barbara Walters Special, Carrey revealed that he was offered the then-record-setting sum of $10 million to star in The Mask II, but turned it down, because his experiences on Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls convinced him that reprising a character he'd previously played offered him no challenges as an actor.
After this, an animated series was released and ran for three seasons. Some ideas for The Mask II made it into the animated series.
An unrelated sequel, Son of the Mask, was released in theaters in February 2005. The sequel was universally panned by critics, and it received 8 nominations at the 2005 Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Remake or Sequel, Worst Actor (Jamie Kennedy), Worst Sequel, Worst Director (Lawrence Guterman), and Worst Couple (Jamie Kennedy and anyone starring with him).
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