Football Movie Marathon #16: Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)

The last movie of the year is Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994).

The story is fairly simple. Leading up to the Superbowl, Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino and team mascot, the field goal kicking dolphin "Snowflake" are kidnapped. While the police search for the superstar, Ace Ventura (played by Jim Carrey in a breakout role) is hired to find the dolphin. Ventura is an interesting character indeed. For the majority of the film he straddles the fine line between appearing mentally challenged and the most brilliant detective in the world. Along for the ride are Courtney Cox (Friends) as the love interest and Sean Young (Blade Runner) as the boss of the police department who just doesn't seem to sit quite right.

Watching this as a young lad, the hilarious portions of the film were mainly the slapstick and flat out craziness. Now there are couple more things that made me laugh, most notably when Ace recognizes that the Miami Dolphins team photo he has based his investigation on is not the most current when he notices one different player on a poster on the other side of a room. "Who...in THE HELL is.....this???" Also interesting is the fact that after realizing he kissed a man, he needs to eat a whole tube of toothpaste, go to town on his face with a toilet plunger, repeatadly drown his head in a toilet, burn his clothes, and take a shower while crying. Doubt that would fly in a movie 15 years later.

Overall the movie is a stupid yet fun filled romp that I find throughly enjoyable.

That's the movie marathon for this year. If I do it again next year we got several favorites including Jerry Maguire, Remember the Titans, Friday Night Lights, and of course, Air Bud: Golden Retreiver to go. Hope the two of you reading this had a good time and maybe watched a movie or two for the first time because of it.


Football Movie Marathon Rankings
1) Any Given Sunday (1999)
2) Brian's Song (1971)
3) Rudy (1993)
4) Knute Rockne: All American (1940)
5) Varsity Blues (1999)
6) The Longest Yard (1974)
7) Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)
8) Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL? (2009)
9) Horse Feathers (1932)
10) Gridiron Gang (2006)
11) The Waterboy (1998)
12) The Band That Wouldn't Die (2009)
13) Invincible (2006)
14) Little Giants (1994)
15) The Longest Yard (2005)
16) Two For the Money (2005)