Son of the Mask

Cartoonist Tim Avery’s dog finds a mysterious wooden mask that imbues the wearer with incredible powers. The bad news is that after a night of passion whilst wearing it, Tim’s wife falls pregnant. The reluctant father’s life is made even harder when the baby is born and starts showing some very unusual abilities (like literally bouncing off the walls) and he and the dog fight for control of the mask. Then Loki, Norse god of mischief turns up wanting ...
...why anyone would want to make a sequel to the Jim Carrey vehicle “The Mask”. But unfortunately, director Lawrence Guterman though it would be a good idea, so we have been lumbered with this monstrous pile of toss. Still maybe I shouldn’t be surprised at how big a turkey this is, considering Guterman was the brain donor behind the deeply unsatisfying “Cats & Dogs”. His first mistake is setting the film in a cartoonish world where houses are colouring ... more

Cartoonist Tim Avery’s dog finds a mysterious wooden mask that imbues the wearer with incredible powers. The bad news is that after a night of passion whilst wearing it, Tim’s wife falls pregnant. The reluctant father’s life is made even harder when the baby is born and starts showing some very unusual abilities (like literally bouncing off the walls) and he and the dog fight for control of the mask. Then Loki, Norse god of mischief turns up wanting it back…

It’s a mystery to me why anyone would want to make a sequel to the Jim Carrey vehicle “The Mask”. But unfortunately, director Lawrence Guterman though it would be a good idea, so we have been lumbered with this monstrous pile of toss. Still maybe I shouldn’t be surprised at how big a turkey this is, considering Guterman was the brain donor behind the deeply unsatisfying “Cats & Dogs”. His first mistake is setting the film in a cartoonish world where houses are colouring book clapboard structures painted in primary colours and everyone that lives there is larger-than-life. So when the mask does its work, nothing seems out of place and everyone accepts it. The other stumbling block is that the director is too interested in his special effects to bother giving his cast any direction. So we are subjected to a series of irritating and wooden performances from all concerned while Guterman attempts to paper over the cracks with yet more “Roger Rabbit” style antics (which is exactly the film Guterman seems to be trying to emulate). But conveniently forgets “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” succeeded because of good writing, strong performances and synergy of effects and story. Story being the big missing link here.

The screenplay by Lance Khazei is an abomination from start to finish. The set-up is nicked straight from Garfield with a cartoonist and his pet failing to connect because of a newcomer. The film doesn’t have a coherent storyline - it’s a series of gags stolen wholesale from Tom and Jerry, Wile E Coyote and Pepé Le Pew and clumsily stitched together. There is no attempt at writing on different levels for kids and adults, with Khazei resolutely sticking to the lowest forms of humour, so we get a series of toilet gags and men being head-butted and hit in the groin. Shakespeare this isn’t. The dialogue is inane and makes no effort to sound realistic. The characterisation is virtually non-existent; the writer hasn’t even bothered to go as far as make them stereotypes, their only function is to react to the special effects and the writer assumes hilarity will ensue. So we couldn’t care less what happens to them and don’t even wince in sympathetic pain when they are attacked. Sadly the jokes aren’t funny. In order for most comedy to work, you need a funny man and a straight man. Here there is neither and unless you really love sight gags, there’s not much to laugh at. Especially if you’ve already seen the cartoons the script is stealing from; watching real people in cartoon slapstick situations isn’t anywhere near as much fun as watching cartoon characters in cartoon situations. Plus slapping some clumsy family values moralising on the end jars badly with the tone of the film.

The acting throughout is as lacklustre as the script. Jamie Kennedy is probably best known as the funny one from the “Scream” movies. Sadly he doesn’t live up to his reputation here. A lot of that is down to lack of direction and a bad script, but Kennedy must shoulder some of the blame. He lacks presence and charisma and is unable breathe any life into Tim Avery the anxious father and the Mask character. As Tim he is dull and insipid, as the Mask he is loud and irritating. In neither role is he manic enough. At least when Jim Carrey played it he brought energy to the part.

I must admit to liking Alan Cumming as an actor because he usually brings charm and a sense of fun to his characters. Obviously in the case of this film he saw it as an opportunity for a free holiday in Australia. The badly underwritten role of Loki offers him nothing to get his teeth into and as a result no acting is required or done. It is an utterly charmless performance that cannot be made up for by excessive amounts of make-up. Bob Hoskins fares slightly better as Odin, king of the gods. But all he’s required to do is stand around in a beard and silly costume shouting. He’s made a career of it and as a result is the least inadequate aspect of the film.

This is a film where special effects have taken precedence over everything else, but was the money spent worth it? Well, yes and no. The effects have been farmed out to a lot of studios, including George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic and Tippett Studio (who were responsible for the ground-breaking effects in “Jurassic Park”). The physical make-up effects tend towards the rubbery and deeply unconvincing. If I were Jamie Kennedy or Alan Cumming, I’d be livid about having to undergo hours of make-up every day, just to look like I’d had a Halloween mask slapped on my face and been painted with green gloss. That being said, some of Cumming’s disguises are fun, calling to mind Jim Carrey’s intentionally dodgy get-ups in “Lemony Snicket”. There are some nice nods to the cartoon world in the gadgets and Heath Robinson style inventions that crop up, with Cumming’s retro-futuristic vacuum cleaner being the prime example. The digital effects veer from the sublime to the ridiculous. When the baby or the dog gets hold of the mask they change into cartoon versions of themselves that are not constrained by the laws of physics. Sadly the baby is particularly badly animated and when for example his mother is blowing up balloons for him and he inflates his own head to match, it could look great, or it could look as though it’s been done on an 8-bit computer. Unfortunately the film-makers opt for the latter, ignoring such basic things as matching the lighting and shade of the child’s surroundings. It’s clear most of the money went on animating the dog, who shows more personality than the entire human cast combined, coming across as a combination of Wile E Coyote and Muttley. Because he’s well animated and the gags involving him are based in a computer generated environment, they look right and tend to be better constructed than the combined shots of digital and real elements used with the child. Hence they are funnier. And the real dog seems to have got better direction than his human counterparts too, never missing his mark.

The score by Randy Edelman starts off promisingly enough with some nice foreboding intro music featuring booming horns and threatening strings. Sadly the wheels come off shortly afterwards, with oodles of twee incidental music that would be better suited to an episode of “The Waltons”. For some reason, Edelman also decides that loud is the same as fun and exciting so we get enormous musical cues when we’re supposed to sit up and take notice, when we’d much rather slump in our seats, pull the popcorn bucket over our heads and pretend we haven’t just spent our hard-earned cash on this rubbish.

To be fair Mary E Vogt has done some good work on the costumes – Alan Cuming gets a series of ludicrously OTT but well-tailored black leather numbers, Bob Hoskins gets some fun armour and Jamie Kennedy gets some nice zoot suit style ensembles as The Mask.

Do not under any circumstances allow your kids to browbeat you into taking them to see this. It will only give them ideas how to cause havoc around the house without questioning their actions and you’ll sit there hating every minute of it. It should have been released straight to video instead of polluting our local multiplexes with its absence of production values, acting or panache. It’s the sort of film studios make when they’ve reached the bottom of the barrel and are scratching through the wood at its base. It’s an unholy mess that should be sealed in concrete and fired into the sun. 

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