Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls/ The Chateau

203. Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls
204. The Chateau


Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls is the 1995 followup to Jim Carrey's first real hit.

Jim Carrey was something of a middling actor in the early 90s. He'd done a few leading roles in movies that were largely unnoticed like Once Bitten. At the time of the first Ace Ventura flick, he was a regular on the television series In Living Color. When that movie hit theaters, no one was really expecting much from it. To everyone's surprise, it was a hit right out of the gate. Word out of mouth carried it to 3 pretty solid weekends with it seeing very small percentage drops.

This sequel finds Ace semi-retired and living in a Buddhist monastery after a tragedy involving an animal. He's pulled out of retirement in order to help find the African Wachati tribe find their missing sacred animal before their vicious rivals slaughter them over the loss of it.

I was amazed at how well this movie held up. I hadn't seen it in years so I was kind of expecting the humor to fall flat and be stale. Instead, I found myself sucked in by Carrey's charm and was laughing pretty frequently. Granted, it's not the same laughter as when I first saw the movie back in the day but it still came as a surprise. His reaction to the sacred animal in particular hit me just right.

The story here is really nothing to talk about. Story is essentially just stopgaps on the way to the next joke. In terms of the cast, this is all Carrey's show. He's at his peak here and just knocks it out of the ballpark. In terms of support, you've got Ian McNeice, Bob Gunton, Simon Callow and Tommy Davidson. All are decent, but again, it's Carrey's movie.

Overall, this is still a pretty funny movie. It's not as good as some of Carrey's others but its still worth checking out.


The Chateau is the 2001 flick starring Paul Rudd and Romany Malco, later to pair up in The 40 Year Old Virgin.

This one tells the story of Graham and Alex, two brothers who have inherited a chateau in France.

I am a big fan of Paul Rudd. I can sit through just about anything that he's in. This movie is the rare exception. I struggled to get through this one. The story is your typical stranger in a strange land deal. The only part I really enjoyed was Rudd's attempts at speaking French. Saying things with a French accent does not make you fluent in the language. Rudd and Malco are the two leads here. Both are good, considering what they're working with. Support comes from Sylvie Testud, Phillipe Nahon and Didier Flamand.

Overall, I found this movie to be boring and painfully slow. Also, it's not particularly funny. It's definitely not worth checking out. Skip it.