Son of the Mask

Son of the Mask is a 2005 superhero comedy film[1] directed by Lawrence Guterman. The film stars Jamie Kennedy as Tim Avery, an aspiring animator from Fringe City who has just had his first child born with the powers of the Mask. It is a standalone sequel to the 1994 film The Mask, an adaptation of Dark Horse Comics which starred Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz.

Son of the Mask
Theatrical release poster
Directed byLawrence Guterman
Produced by
Written byLance Khazei
Based on
Starring
Music byRandy Edelman
CinematographyGreg Gardiner
Edited by
  • Malcolm Campbell
  • John Coniglio
  • Debra Neil Fisher
Production
company
Distributed byNew Line Cinema
Release date
  • February 11, 2005 (2005-02-11) (United Kingdom)
  • February 18, 2005 (2005-02-18) (United States)
Running time
94 minutes[2]
Country
  • Germany
  • United States[1]
LanguageEnglish
Budget$84–100 million[3][4]
Box office$59.9 million[4]

It also stars Alan Cumming as the god of mischief, Loki, whom Odin has ordered to find the Mask. It co-stars Traylor Howard, Kal Penn, Steven Wright, Bob Hoskins as Odin, and Ryan and Liam Falconer as Tim's baby Alvey. Ben Stein makes a brief reappearance in the beginning of the film as Dr. Arthur Neuman from The Mask to reestablish the relationship with the mask and Loki. Bill Farmer and Richard Steven Horvitz provide the voice and vocal effects of the masked Otis respectively. The film was panned by critics and grossed $59.9 million against its $84–100 million budget.

Plot

11 years after the events of the first film, Dr. Arthur Neuman is giving a tour of the hall of Norse mythology in Edge City Museum. Dr. Neuman mentions that Loki created the mask and unleashed it on Earth, and that those who wear the mask would have the powers of Loki. When Dr. Neuman mentions that Loki was imprisoned by Odin, a man in black becomes very angry and transforms, revealing himself to be Loki. The tourists panic and flee, but Dr. Neuman stays to argue with the angry god. Loki takes the mask on display, but realizes it is a fake. In anger, he removes Dr. Neuman's still talking face from his body and puts it on the mask stand, before getting rid of the guards and storming out of the museum in a whirlwind of rage.

Meanwhile, the real mask, makes its way to a town called Fringe City, and is found in a river by a dog named Otis - who belongs to Tim Avery, an aspiring animator at an animation studio, who is feeling reluctant to become a father. He has a beautiful wife, Tonya, and a best friend, Jorge. On a tropical island, Loki is relaxing until Odin confronts him and orders his son to find the mask, as it has caused too much trouble for mankind. Loki asks Odin to help him, but Odin tells Loki that this is his mess and he has to clean it up. Later that night, Tim puts on the mask for a Halloween party, transforming into an eccentric, green-faced party animal. When the company party turns out to be a bore, Tim uses his powers to perform a remix of "Can't Take My Eyes Off You", making the party a success, and giving Tim's boss the idea to turn Tim's costumed persona into a cartoon, resulting in his promotion the next day.

Tim returns to his house and, while still wearing the mask, conceives a baby. The baby, named Alvey, is born with the same powers as the mask which alerts Odin. Meanwhile, Odin, possessing a store clerk, tells Loki about this and tells him that if he finds the child, he will find the mask. Later, Tonya goes on a business trip, leaving Tim with the baby. Tim, who has been promoted at work, desperately tries to work on his cartoon at home, but is continuously disrupted by baby Alvey, in order to get some peace and quiet, Tim lets Alvey watch Michigan J. Frog, Woody Woodpecker, The Flintstones, and Transformers on the television. Alvey devilishly obtains the idea to mess with his father's head by using his powers. Meanwhile, Otis the dog, who has been feeling neglected by Tim because of Alvey, dons the mask by accident and becomes a crazed animal version of himself, who wishes to get rid of the baby, but all his attempts are overturned by Alvey. Eventually, Loki finds the mask-born baby, and confronts Tim for the mask back, but is thwarted again and again by Alvey who uses his powers to protect his father.

Eventually, Odin, possessing Tim's body, becomes fed up with Loki's destructive approach for defying him once again and strips his son of his powers. A seemingly-deranged Tim is later fired after failing to impress his boss during a pitch, but is able to reconcile and bond with Alvey. Loki, still determined to please his father, manages to complete a summoning ritual and appeal to Odin to restore his powers. Odin agrees, but only for a limited time, stating this as his last chance. Loki then kidnaps Alvey to exchange for the mask, but decides to keep him despite the exchange, causing Tim and Tonya, having returned home, to find them, as well as forcing Tim to don the mask again to fight Loki. The subsequent confrontation is relatively evenly matched due to both of them possessing equal powers, prompting Loki to halt the fight, and suggest that they let Alvey decide who he wants to live with. Although Loki tries to lure Alvey to him with toys and promises of fun, Tim wins by removing the mask and asks Alvey to come back to him using the human connection he has forged with his son, causing Alvey to choose Tim.

Saddened and enraged, Loki tries to kill Tim, but his time has run out and Odin appears in person, where he begins to banish him. Tim, however, feels sorry for Loki and reminds Odin that regardless of their problems, they are still father and son and that "the most important thing in life is a relationship with your family". Touched by Tim's heartfelt speech, Odin reconciles with Loki as a son, and Tim gives the mask to Odin, who returns to Asgard with Loki. In the end, Tim's subsequent cartoon, based on his own experiences of Alvey and Otis competing for his attention, becomes a success and Tonya reveals that she is pregnant again.

Cast

Voices

Production

Development and writing

Not long after the release of The Mask, it was announced in Nintendo Power that Jim Carrey would be returning in a sequel called The Mask II. The magazine held a contest where the first prize would be awarded a walk-on role in the film.[5] Director Chuck Russell, who helmed the original film, expressed his interest in a Mask sequel in his 1996 Laserdisc commentary. He was hoping Carrey would come back as the title character, along with Amy Yasbeck, who played reporter Peggy Brandt in the original. Russell decided to cut scenes when Peggy dies and leave the character open for the sequel, which became this film. In a 1995 Barbara Walters Special, Carrey revealed that he was offered $10 million to star in The Mask II, but turned it down, because his experiences on Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls convinced him that reprising a character he'd previously played offered him no challenges as an actor. Due to Carrey declining to reprise his role, the project never came to fruition, and the concept for the sequel was completely changed. The winner of the failed contest was given $5000 and other prizes, and was issued an apology in the final issue of Nintendo Power in 2012.[6]

In 2001, it was reported that Lance Khazei was asked by New Line Cinema to do the script for a sequel to The Mask.[7]

Addressing the differences between the sequel and the original film, Russell compared it to the differences between Alien and Aliens, stating that, "Son of the Mask is a completely different story."[8]

Ben Stein reprises his role of Dr. Arthur Neuman from the original film. He is involved in the movie to re-establish the relationship between the mask and its creator, Loki. He is the only actor to appear in both films as well as in The Mask cartoon series. The dog's name, Otis, connects with the dog from the original film and comic book, Milo, as a reference to the movie The Adventures of Milo and Otis. The naming of "Tim Avery" pays homage to famous cartoonist Tex Avery. Tim Avery wants to be a cartoonist throughout the film. The film was shot at Fox Studios in Sydney. Principal photography began on August 18, 2003.

Reception

Box office

The film earned back $59.9 million of its $84-100 million budget, making it a box office bomb.[3]

Critical response

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.[9] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 20 out of 100 based on 26 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[10] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B–" on an A+ to F scale.

In his review Richard Roeper stated, "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 gave the film 1.5 stars and 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." He later named it the fifth worst film of 2005. On their television show, Ebert & Roeper, they gave the film "Two Thumbs Down".[11] Lou Lumerick of the New York Post, gave the film a zero-star rating and said that, "Parents who let their kids see this stinker should be brought up on abuse charges; so should the movie ratings board that let this suggestive mess slip by with a PG rating."[12]

When asked in a 2012 interview about whether the film's negative critical reaction had damaged Kennedy's morale in wanting do another project like this, Kennedy replied to the interviewer, "Yes. You got me right after a batch of bad interviews so I'm going to be honest with you about this. It does because I'm just being killed, absolutely killed... But honestly, doing this movie is an interesting experience because I just came off my show and Malibu's Most Wanted where I had a good amount of control. And then in this movie I didn't have any control. I just can't do that. I have to have my voice in there. If I can't, I'm just going to be like I'm doing someone else's thing. I have to have some of my voice because I have my own experiences that I lived through. All I can do is just try to make things independently. That's the only way you can do it. The only way you can do that is if you're a huge, huge, huge star. I'm not there yet. I'm just like a working actor."[13] The poor reception of Son of the Mask, of which affected Kennedy personally, inspired him to co-create the documentary film Heckler, an examination of both hecklers and professional critics.

Accolades

It was the most nominated film at the 2005 Golden Raspberry Awards with eight, winning for Worst Remake or Sequel,[14] and won several 2005 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, including Worst Actor (Jamie Kennedy), Worst Sequel, and Worst Couple.[15]

In a 2007 countdown of the 94 "worst to best" comic book to film adaptations Rotten Tomatoes listed the film 94th.[16]

Other media

Video game

A video game based on the film was released on Wireless Phone on February 10, 2005. The game was published and developed by Indiagames.

Possible sequel

On the possibility of a third film, Mike Richardson has said, "We've been talking about reviving The Mask, both in film and in comics. We've had a couple of false starts."[17]

See also

References
  1. "Detail view of Movies Page". Afi.com. Retrieved 17 September 2017.
  2. "SON OF THE MASK - British Board of Film Classification". Retrieved August 26, 2016.
  3. "Son of the Mask (2005)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved March 27, 2013.
  4. "Son of the Mask (2005)". The Numbers. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
  5. "Player's Poll Contest". Nintendo Power (77): 82–83. October 1995.
  6. Ponce, Tony (February 4, 2015). "Meet the winner of Nintendo Power's The Mask II contest". Destructoid. Retrieved March 1, 2019.
  7. "'Mask' Sequel in the Works but Will Carrey Be Back?". Yahoo! News. July 31, 2001. Archived from the original on August 6, 2001. Retrieved December 25, 2017.
  8. Johnson, Kim Howard (April 2005). "Mask Amuck". Starlog (333): 57–61.
  9. "Son of the Mask (2005)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved October 10, 2020.
  10. "Son of the Mask". Metacritic.
  11. Ebert, Roger (February 18, 2005). "'Son of the Mask' fails even cartoon logic test". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved January 15, 2010.
  12. Lumenick, Lou (18 February 2005). "'SON' DOESN'T SHINE". New York Post.
  13. "Jamie Kennedy Interview - Jamie Kennedy on Son of the Mask and Creative Control". Movies.about.com. 2012-04-10. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
  14. "Razzies© 2003 Press Release". Razzies.com. Archived from the original on 2016-04-28. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
  15. 2005 Stinker Awards Announced!, Rotten Tomatoes, March 3, 2006
  16. "Comix Worst to Best". Archived from the original on 2007-05-08. Retrieved 2020-07-08.
  17. Sunu, Steve (7 August 2014). "EXCLUSIVE: Richardson Details Dark Horse's "Itty Bitty Mask" Plans". Comic Book Resources. Retrieved 26 December 2017.
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