Considering what Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994) did for star Jim Carrey’s career, it is surprising that it has yet to be covered by The Legionnaire.  Aside from it being iconic for the actor, it is arguably one of the most recognizable films of the 1990s.  At the same time, is it as well remembered today?  I contend that it is not, and now that I have watched it for the first time in decades, it is easy to see why.  While nothing can be taken away from Carey’s performance, who maintains an air of over-the-top ridiculousness from beginning to end, much of the rest of the comedy does not age well.  Specifically, there are a lot of gay jokes, which are used in order to denigrate an entire group of people.  Doing so is not Christian behavior.  To risk further un-Christian words, I would also posit that there is no reason to re-visit this film if you happen to find it on a streaming service.

Speaking of service, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective begins with the title character (Jim Carrey) delivering a package marked “fragile.”  Instead of handling it with care, he is banging the box of glass off any available hard surface, and punching and kicking it in between these blows.  Attempts at comedy aside, this is also a clue that he is undercover.  Once he finally gets to his destination, he swaps the beat-up carton for the shih-tzu being kept by the resident.  Before the mark realizes he has been tricked, Ace has gotten to his car and manages to get it started before he is pummeled.  This Catholic will not be discussing how he is repaid.  Once this scene comes to a merciful end, we start getting some of those classic detective flick tropes.  He gets home where we learn that, as a private gumshoe, he struggles to pay his rent.  When his landlord comes looking for money, Ace claims that he has a big case that is about to bring him plenty of money.  He is also successful in hiding all the animals he is not supposed to be keeping.  Meanwhile, there is only one animal that matters: Snowflake, the mascot of the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League (NFL).  Late at night, a mysterious group of men sneak into the team’s stadium two weeks before the Super Bowl and steal the animal.  When team officials discover the theft, the Dolphins’ publicist, Melissa Robinson (Courtney Cox), is recommended Ace as the person look into the matter.  Upon getting to the stadium, Ace does Ace things while examining Snowflake’s tank.  While it appears silly, he does find a solitary, triangular cut gem stone in the pool’s filter.  From there, he visits a computer expert friend of his, Woodstock (Raynor Scheine), who helps him investigate anyone with the money to own such jewelry and who might have purchased products to maintain a large marine animal.  The research leads Ace to Ronald Camp (Udo Kier), a billionaire and an investor in the Miami Dolphins, who Ace theorizes stands to profit by Snowflake’s disappearance.  Using Melissa as a date to gain entrance to Ronald’s home.  Ace does find a tank, but it turns out to be holding a great white shark, meaning Ronald is not Snowflake’s dolphin-napper.  At the same time, Ace does take notice of Ronald’s 1984 American Football Conference (AFC) championship ring.  Its gem settings match the cut of the one he found.  Thus, while Ronald is ruled out as a suspect, it does mean that Ace is now after every member of that team.  What follows is montage of him harassing every one of these athletes he can find, ruling them out methodically, one-by-one.  As these suspects are being crossed off his list, Melissa’s co-worker, Roger Podacter (Troy Evans), is found dead.  The police believe it is a suicide, but Ace is able to demonstrate at the scene that it was murder.  Either way, it looks like the case has reached a dead end.  Not wanting to give up, Melissa brings Ace to the Miami Dolphins’ corporate office to check out receipts of the rings.  During this, he sees a picture of the team with which he is not familiar.  Specifically, he notices Ray Finkle.  Upon pointing him out, Ace is told Ray had been added to the roster late in the season.  The field goal kicker would go on to become infamous for missing a field goal kick that would have won the Dolphins the Super Bowl.  With further digging, Ace learns that Ray had come from a small town not far from Miami.  In visiting Ray’s childhood home, Ace uncovers an obsession with Dan Marino (as himself), whom Ray blames for the errant kick.  It is enough to convince Ace that Dan is going to be the next target, but the police do not get to the quarterback in time to prevent his abduction.  At this point, Ace goes to Lieutenant Lois Einhorn (Sean Young), who has been the cop in charge of the investigation and who hates Ace.  Their interaction is strange, and that is all I will say on the matter.  It still means that Ace does not know who Ray Finkle is, and so he travels to the mental health institution where Ray stayed after his career for further information.  Among Ray’s items, Ace finds a newspaper article talking about the disappearance of a hiker named Lois Einhorn.  Filing that bit of information in his head, he is also told that Lieutenant Einhorn had a connection with Roger.  It all adds up to what Ace takes as a disturbing revelation: that Lieutenant Einhorn is Ray Finkle, having had a sex change operation.  Convinced that he has his . . . er, man, Ace follows Lieutenant Einhorn to where she is holding Dan and Snowflake.  There is another supposedly comedic action sequence before Ace saves the day and gets everyone to the stadium in time for the second half of the Super Bowl.

With how much I am enjoying professional football this season with the success of my Chicago Bears, I cannot say that I liked revisiting Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.  As I mentioned in the introduction, the so-called comedy has not aged well.  I say that as a film critic in general and a Catholic.  The best I can do is to talk about St. Francis of Assisi.  This is not simply because St. Francis is the patron saint of animals and ecology.  That connection works, but there is also a statue of him at the mental health institution that Ace goes undercover at to learn more about Ray.  There is somewhat of a stronger analogy to be made.  One of the legends connected to St. Francis is his famous sermon to the birds.  Having become frustrated with humans, the founder of the Franciscan order is reputed to have left church confines in order to give his sermon to the birds and trees.  In a similar way, Ace confesses that he does not “do humans.”  That statement is not intended to talk about Faith.  However, there is a parallel between their mistrust for common people, though expressed in vastly different ways.  I would also not say that St. Francis carried that mistrust into a general hate for God’s people, far from it.  As such, that is about all I can squeeze out of this movie from a Catholic perspective.

The brevity of this review of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective can be blamed not only on its lack of reverence, but because of the dated material.  If it has anything going for it, it is that it is under an hour and a half long.  Otherwise, there is no reason to watch this one.