Son of the Mask
| ♥ | This article is dedicated to the late Bob Hoskins (1942-2014). May he rest in peace. |
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 "A family picture!" - Nostalgia Critic
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"This movie is a horrific piece of shit. Is it as bad as The Cat in the Hat? No. But it's pretty close"
— The Blockbuster Buster on Son of the Mask
Son of the Mask is a 2005 American superhero comedy film directed by Lawrence Guterman and starring Jamie Kennedy as Tim Avery, an aspiring cartoonist from Fringe City who has just had his first child born with the powers of the Mask. It is the stand-alone sequel to the successful 1994 comedy film The Mask, an adaptation of the Dark Horse Comics character of the same name which starred Jim Carrey.
Plot
Aspiring cartoonist Tim Avery finds himself in a predicament when his dog Otis finds the mask of Loki. Then, after conceiving a son "born of the mask" with his wife Tonya, Tim finds out how looney child raising can be.
Why It's the Crappiest Piece of Crap in Craptown
- Poor grasp of the first movie with plot-holes and continuity errors. For example:
- A major plot hole would be that Otis is still wearing the Mask during the day when it only works at night.
- It also misses the point of the original movie, which was to do with the concept of a "mask" as the socially acceptable "face" that people wear over their true self; by putting on Loki's mask, you take off your own. This is replaced with basically nothing at all.
- It also contradicts the lore of the franchise, in the original comic books and one of the deleted scenes from the first movie, it implied that Odin punished Loki, took his powers, and put them inside the mask, here however Loki created the mask himself to cause mischief around the world.
- The acting is undoubtedly the most awkward of all time that it ruins the talents of its all-star cast.
- Jamie Kennedy (from Romeo + Juliet, Bowfinger, and Malibu's Most Wanted fame) gives a very badly done performance as Tim Avery in the film and sounds like all of his dialogue is very whiny. Not to mention, he is nowhere near as funny as what Jim Carrey did with his performance as Stanley Ipkiss in the original movie, which also emphasizes how truly bad this so-called "sequel" is. Also, after the reception of the movie, it caused Jamie Kennedy to hate movie critics and also almost ruined his career, which shows how the movie ruined his file as a result.
- It has painfully unfunny humor, only relying on gross-out humor and toilet humor, instead of the more cartoonish humor the original film had.
- Four words: TIM. FARTED. ON. LOKI. This was in the scene where Loki battles with Tim in the final battle, though fortunately, Tim was in his Mask form, but still, it’s pretty disgusting to see Tim farting on a villain.
- "Stink like a SKUNK!"
- The dream sequence with Tim at the beginning is pretty disturbing even for Mask standards, as it has Tim as a doctor pulling out babies from a woman that gives birth to so many babies that the babies actually give out fangs, which is pretty creepy for the most part.
- There's a scene where Tim has to change the baby's diaper, only for it to start peeing multiple streams of pee causing Tim to start grabbing cups to catch the streams pee, only for the baby to pee out a massive beam of pee right in Tim's face.
- Four words: TIM. FARTED. ON. LOKI. This was in the scene where Loki battles with Tim in the final battle, though fortunately, Tim was in his Mask form, but still, it’s pretty disgusting to see Tim farting on a villain.
- A stupid scene with Loki revolving around the neighborhood to search between houses wearing different disguises to find the baby who was born by the mask. He should have simply used his powers to search for the baby, which could count as filler.
- Extremely flawed character design for Loki, who looks nothing that Loki could've looked as he looks more like Mr. Furious from the Mystery Men movie, which was a way better film than this, not to mention, his face when he uses his powers look both creepy and stupid since his face looks like the face of the KISS band members during St. Patrick's day.
- Just like Battlefield Earth, it has terrible cinematography, as it has way too many creepy close-ups and wide-angle lenses at the actors.
- The CGI design of Otis looked scary enough, as he looks like Courage the Cowardly Dog if he had an addiction to Marijuana. And if that (somehow) wasn't enough, there's also a scene where a trap that he set for the baby backfires on him and snags him by the collar, causing his eyes to literally pop out of his head. And that's before he gets crushed in a piano, crushed into a cube, almost shredded by the ceiling fan before being snagged on its blades, dropped into tar, getting covered in chicken feathers, dragged underground, flattened, drowned, and then flattened again, all while his cries for dear life can be heard in the background along with all of the cartoony sound effects. Needless to say, this doesn't make him any less creepy than he already was.
- In addition to the part were Loki as the bee form in that scene looked something a lot like a really creepier version of Shrek and a rip-off of the Troll face meme.
- Along with a creepy part where the baby head turned into Woody Woodpecker.
- Several of the scenes are too frightening for a PG-rated film, like one scene where Otis tries to kill Alvey and when Loki pulls out the head of Ben Stein and replaces it with a fake mask, and another one in which Tim Avery accidentally mistakes a broken night light for a bottle of milk due to him being drowsy, and Alvey making a horrific-looking cartoony shocked expression.
- Pointless subplots where Tim's dog, Otis, wants to kill the baby so that he can be the center of attention, and Alvey wants to drive Tim crazy enough to send him to a psychiatric hospital. Both subplots come completely out of nowhere and equally make as much sense as no sense.
- Alvey is by far, the most unlikable child character in the film as he hates his father for no reason whatsoever, in fact, it's never explained as to why he hates him other than the scene where he imagines his father in a cartoony jailhouse and the fact that he loves his mother more than him.
- Forgettable characters, especially when it comes to Loki (who's just your typical Generic Doomsday Villain), Tim Avery, Alvey (a bad mixture of a supposedly regular baby who is surreal and a Guile Hero who comes off as a Karma Houdini ), Otis (who is a pet who with the mask, turns into a malicious but predictable Butt-Monkey as the antagonist to Alvey), and Tonya (who's little more than the typical love interest for the main protagonist).
- Speaking of Tim Avery, he serves as the replacement for the previous film's protagonist, Stanley Ipkiss. And not only does he try so hard to be the new Stanley only to miserably fail and instead feel like a cheap knock-off Stanley, but he also manages to be an incredibly obnoxious, aggravating, and overall unlikable protagonist.
- Speaking of Otis, he goes from being a typically loyal pet to Tim, to becoming jealous of Alvey in such a way that is confusing to tell until his subplot comes out of nowhere when he becomes Masked Otis; who is meant to be a comic-relief villain to Alvey. Not only is it just some predictably unfunny chaos done for the sake of slapstick humor, but Otis doesn't contribute that much to the movie itself (aside from the ending of the movie), not even after Otis unmasked himself to give back Tim that mask the latter was begging for Otis to give back.
- Sylvia is also a rip-off of Tina Carlyle from the original, except for the cat-like costume.
- The non-US release of this movie literally has a sperm fertilization scene as well, We're not joking, In other words, a scene that features sex in a PG-rated movie.
- The Halloween party scene at the beginning is very bland and lame, especially when Tim raps.
- This film came out 11 years after the first film, which feels late for New Line Cinema to do a Mask sequel to the fact that Jim Carrey was supposed to reprise his role as Stanley/The Mask, but instead, Jamie Kennedy did the acting instead of him.
- Pointless pop culture reference to Transformers: Armada, where you can see the baby watching it.
- Because this film bombed at the box office and due to the very negative reviews it got, it almost killed the Mask franchise, as Dark Horse Entertainment refused to make any more Mask comics until 2019.
- Terrible direction by Lawrence Guterman.
- The pacing really sucks.
Redeeming Qualities
- Like the 1994 film, the story is surprisingly quite good despite it's every single faults what comes with this movie as mentioned above.
- Despite this, this film surprisingly had kid-friendly and lighter tone, unlike the first film.
- The props, sets, and costumes look pretty good the biggest example is Odin's outfit.
- Alan Cumming (despite being wasted) gives a good performance in this film, although most of the acting is terrible as mentioned above.
- Richard Steven Horvitz does a good job voicing Otis, it helps that he voiced Zim from Invader Zim and Billy from The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy.
- The film poster looks superb. See the image above.
- The CGI effects are more appealing, like the Previous Movie
- Good 2D-animation for the imagine spots, that is similar to classic MGM cartoons.
- Tim Avery proudly redeemed himself, when he incredibly transforms into The Mask.
- At least, many funny moments and some slapstick comedy moments are done-well. Despite most of the humor is very unfunny as mentioned above.
- There's the funniest moment where Tim tries to get his baby to say "Dada" but then he speaks in a very low tough man voice saying "Mother."
- "Hey Loki, GIMME BACK MY SON!"
- "Um, nope."
- Loki and Odin synchronize their hourglasses.
- "Heeeeeeeeeeee're's... LOKI!!!!"
- The soundtrack is fine, like a cover of: If My Friends Could See Me Now, and What a Wonderful World.
- There are a few good call-backs to the first film.
- "SMOKIN' causes cancer." This was a deleted scene.
- Dr. Alfred Neuman appears in the beginning and his scene takes place at Edge City, too.
- The 2004 Holden Monaro at the final battle is honestly pretty awesome to look at and is pretty impressive.
Reception
Son of the Mask was universally panned by both critics and fans of the original for its story, lack of the original cast, and moments too inappropriate for a PG film, with many considering it one of the worst films of all time. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 6% based on 105 reviews and an average rating of 3.05/10. The site's consensus reads: "Overly frantic, painfully unfunny, and sorely missing the presence of Jim Carrey." The site ranked the film 75th in the 100 worst reviewed films of the 2000s. On Metacritic, the film has a score of 20 out of 100 based on 26 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B–" on an A+ to F scale. On IMDb, the film holds a 2.3/10. Richard Roeper stated in the Ebert & Roeper review, "In the five years I've been co-hosting this show, this is the closest I've ever come to walking out halfway through the film, and now that I look back on the experience, I wish I had." Roger Ebert stated, "What we basically have here is a license for the filmmakers to do whatever they want to do with the special effects, while the plot, like Wile E. Coyote, keeps running into the wall." Roger Ebert awarded the film as his fifth worst film of 2005 and he and Richard Roeper gave the film a "Thumbs down."
Box Office
Son of the Mask opened up at #4 on its opening weekend grossing $7,511,675 at the U.S. box office. The film later made a total of domestic gross of $17,018,422. In foreign countries, the film grossed $40,534,219. Overall, the film grossed $57,552,641 worldwide against its $84 million budget, making it a box office bomb.
Awards and Nominations
The film won the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Remake or Sequel. Unlike the previous film which was more family-oriented, this film is blatantly for kids as the tone is much lighter and more comical than the first one. The film was widely considered to be a front runner for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture, but lost to Dirty Love, Jamie Kennedy was nominated for Worst Actor but lost to Rob Schneider in Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, Alan Cumming and Bob Hoskins were nominated for Worst Supporting Actor, but lost to Hayden Christensen in Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. Lawrence Gutterman was nominated for Worst Director, but lost to John Mallory Asher for Dirty Love. Jamie Kennedy and anybody stuck sharing the screen with him were nominated for Worst Screen Couple, but lost to Will Ferrell and Nicole Kidman in Bewitched and Worst Screenplay, but lost to Dirty Love.
Trivia
- Jack Black was offered the role of Tim, but turned it down.
- In late-1994, few months after the first film was released to critical and commercial success, a contest was run in Nintendo Power for a chance to be an extra in the cancelled project The Mask II, which was unrelated to this film. The project was cancelled, and Nintendo Power issued a public apology to the contest winner in their final issue. Years later, the winner was revealed to be Nathan Ryan Runk, from Arbutus, Maryland. The film was technically on hold, so Runk could have chosen the role or money and merchandise. Runk, who was 12 at the time, chose the money, and received $5,000, a film crew jacket (which he later lost), and several Super Nintendo games, including Pilotwings 64 on Nintendo 64. Runk later claimed it was "absolutely the right call".
- Following the release of the first film in 1994, Jim Carrey was asked to reprise his role of Stanley Ipkiss/The Mask and accepted the offer. However, he later decided not to star in the original version of The Mask II after doing Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls in 1995.
- The rare teaser trailer from 2003 was featured before showing of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (another New Line Cinema film). The rare teaser trailer of this film featured a different-looking baby posing with a early CGI face and was no actual title was shown but just says "The Mask is back" (the working title was The Mask II) and the earlier planned released date of 2004 was also shown, the teaser trailer was resulted in backlash as both teaser trailer and the actual film does not have Jim Carrey and the rest of the cast from the first film returning (except Ben Stein returning in the actual film).
- Jamie Kennedy actually regrets starring in this film and inspired him to do a film called Heckler in response to being heckled by someone who got mad at him for his performance in the film.
- The film was in production for 10 years (from 1994 to 2004) and was reworked. It was announced too early and the original version of it was called The Mask II, but Jim Carrey decided not to do the role of the Mask.
- The main protagonist Tim Avery is named after the animator Tex Avery.
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