Siskel & Ebert (TV Series)

The American President/Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls/Kicking and Screaming/Carrington/Total Eclipse (1995)

Gene Siskel: Self - Host

Quotes 

• Gene Siskel - Host : All righty then, that's Jim Carrey as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, on assignment in Africa for the sequel to one of the most surprising smash hits of recent years: Carrey playing a deliberately offensive goof. Well, I started enjoying his humor in pictures like "The Mask" and "Dumb and Dumber", which came later. I hated the first "Ace Ventura" film, and the new one, "Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls", is only twice as good. And you know what two times zero adds up to.

  [...] 

  Gene Siskel - Host : Why doesn't this "Ace Ventura" work, at least for me? It's not for the lack of Jim Carrey trying, but he doesn't have a single compelling person or animal to respond to in "When Nature Calls". Not one. The tribal characters are cartoon oafs, the white men are stooges. Like everyone else in the movies, Jim Carrey works better with a real script and some worthy enemies. I laughed a couple of times at his silliness, but hardly enough to recommend "Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls".

  Roger Ebert - Host : Well I don't agree with you that it's better than the first Ace Ventura movie. I gave that one thumbs down, but I thought it was richer and had more incident and more characters and more plot and more stuff in it than this one, which seems real thin, as if they were really depending on Jim Carrey to save the day.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Well there isn't a whole lot here.

  Roger Ebert - Host : No.

  Gene Siskel - Host : But, I mean, he has this story that he goes out into- I mean, it's all the recycled...

  Roger Ebert - Host : Yeah, I know.

  Gene Siskel - Host : ...African tribal stuff, and you've seen it all before.

  Roger Ebert - Host : You sure have, and you're tired of it, too.