Does anyone remember The Mask movie from 1994 with Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz? The movie helped both actors establish their careers as leading stars and grossed over $350 million around the world with a $23 million budget, while also earning Carrey a Golden Globe nomination for best actor in a comedy or musical and an Academy Award nomination for best visual effects. The success of the movie spawned a sequel a little over a decade later, Son of the Mask, but we’d rather just pretend that movie never happened. While the movie did much for the careers of Carrey and Diaz, a proper sequel with them was never green lighted. Recently, however, a report from Movieweb claims that Warner Bros. is eyeing to make a sequel to The Mask and have Carrey return to reprise his role as Stanley Ipkiss. This report is still very much a rumor, so take it with a very small grain of salt, but if there really is some fire to this smoke, then it’s time to have some fun and speculate what it will be like.
The Mask was a indeed a fun time, but people who don’t read comics might not be aware of where the character really comes from. The character belongs to Dark Horse Comics, a publishing company that is known for having dark and twisted characters for their protagonists, and The Mask is one of their most messed up “heroes.” The character is known as “The Mask” because the actual “superhero” of the story is a literal magical mask that bestows extraordinary powers on whoever wears it. These powers include pretty much any superpower that anyone can think of, but to sum it all up, the wearer is granted reality-warping powers. While that sounds like a mask that anyone would want to get their hands on, it also causes the wearer to lose their minds, as the mask removes all moral qualities and takes control of the wearer.
When The Mask debuted in the comics, Stanley Ipkiss was the first man to wear the mask, and he was turned into a wacky, but ultra-violent super freak that went on a murderous rampage against anyone who wronged him. While he did fight criminals, he acted as vicious antihero, rather than a benevolent hero. The Mask was a mantle that didn’t just belong to Stanley Ipkiss, but every wearer was in it’s control, turning them into a complicated protagonist that was basically a violent cartoon character.
The movie version toned down the excessive and graphic violence from the comic books to make Carrey’s version a more mischievous hero, rather than a violent one. This deviation from the source material is understandable, but it still makes fans of the comics anxious to see The Mask at his most violent best. Carrey’s version nailed it with the comedic aspect, but he lacked the violent qualities of The Mask that makes the character a true antihero. However, he did portray the same powers that the character shows in the comics, which is basically a limitless type of “toon force” that allows him to be literally omnipotent. He pulled random objects out of thin air, such as balloon animals that he can turn into tommy guns, and a hammer to bang himself in the head with, similar to how cartoon characters do. This is a type of unparalleled power that we don’t see in movies and the comics amp it up to the bloody extreme. More comic book movies these days are shooting for an R rating, so having a more violent version of the character in the sequel would be very fitting.
One of the most complex things about The Mask is the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde aspect he shares with his wearers. In the Jim Carrey movie, Stanley Ipkiss was a weak and insecure man, so becoming The Mask was a way to show his true strength and overcome his insecurities. The Mask was ultimately helpful to him, but in the comics, it takes an emotional and mental toll on him. When the comic version of Stanley Ipkiss first encountered the mask, it somehow spoke to him and urged him to wear it, allowing the mask to take control of him. After The Mask alter ego manipulated him into committing heinous acts, Ipkiss lost his girlfriend as a result and was later killed by her when she discovered who he was. While the film chose to show Stanley to have more control over himself, it would be more interesting if the sequel showed him to be less dependent on the mask and even trying to resist wearing it. What if he constantly tries to throw it away, but it finds a way back to him? This would lead to some great conflict.
Since we’re on the topic of sequels, we should talk about how certain franchises in recent years have spawned sequels to the original movies while ignoring their less successful sequels. Halloween, The Terminator franchise, and even the upcoming Robocop Returns movie are prime examples, considering they all contain bad sequels that they wouldn’t mind wiping off the slate. In the case of The Mask, it’s sequel, Son of the Mask, was a massive flop and a 6% on Rotten Tomatoes to pile it on. It was bad, simple as that, so how can another sequel be successful while this movie is a part of the continuity? The answer is don’t acknowledge it and remove it from the continuity. The biggest connection to the Jim Carrey movie is how the mask is found in the river years after Tina Carlyle threw it away. A dog finds it and another man puts it on, all while showing no signs of Stanley Ipkiss or other characters from the first movie. Son of the Mask didn’t really show too many signs of being connected to the first movie and not too many people really watched it, so hardly anyone would blame a proper follow-up to the first one for completely ignoring it.
Jim Carrey has a reluctance to do sequels for his earlier films, but this is one of his best movies and one of his best roles that allows him to go full goofy. If he does return, he needs to be allowed to do his thing, since he fit the wacky nature of The Mask perfectly. If the sequel does happen, at least we can expect a great performance from himJim Carrey
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