Carrey Has Found The Perfect Role, And That’s No Lie

After a flat and relatively unsuccessful outing in “The Cable Guy,” it seems Jim Carrey is back.

All of you out there who loved “Ace Ventura” and “Dumb and Dumber” now have a whole new movie to adore, worship and memorize. “Liar, Liar” features the comedian in his best form, perhaps even better than in those two movies.

“Liar, Liar” seems to understand the popularity and appeal of Jim Carrey much better than “The Cable Guy” did. Carrey is a comic genius in any setting but he does his best work when he can just “let it all out” and be the clown that has made him so popular.

That’s what he did in “Ace Ventura” and that’s what he gets to do in “Liar, Liar.”

Carrey’s character, Fletcher, is a caricature of a brown-nosing lawyer who will do anything to get to the top. It’s the perfect role for him. While a typical lawyer in a typical Los Angeles firm wouldn’t act quite like Carrey does in this film, he’s so funny it doesn’t matter.

In the first few minutes of “Liar, Liar,” Fletcher is outlined as someone for whom lying has become second nature. He does everything from standing up his son to complimenting a hairdo that looks like the effects of electroshock therapy.

But then, the worst happens. At his son’s fifth birthday, the boy wishes his dad won’t lie, if just for a day. And it comes true.

This theme is an old one, although it’s been approached in different ways. Everyone from the ancient Greeks to Disney has written or filmed their take on it, but it never gets old. What would happen if someone just couldn’t lie?

In this case, like everything else remotely connected to Jim Carrey, the most outrageous possible things result.

At the time of the wish, Fletcher is representing an adulterous client who wants half of her soon-to-be ex-husband’s estate. He finds his foolproof plan to present her as “the victim” impossible to execute, as it is chock-full of lies.

Everywhere he goes, he is forced to tell people what he really thinks of them and when people find out about his affliction, it gets even funnier.

While I wouldn’t go so far as to say this is a Jim Carrey movie with substance, it comes as close as one might expect from him.

As “The Cable Guy” so readily proves, Carrey is made for comic acting and any departure from that genre is a sin to both him and his audience.

Grade: A-