21 Years Ago Today, This Sequel to 1 of the 1990s’ Best Superhero Movies Was So Bad You Still Won’t Believe It

Before the boom really started with X-Men in 2000 and Spider-Man in 2002, there were still quite a few successful big screen comic book adaptations. Chief among those was, of course, the Superman and Batman movies, as well as Blade. Then there were the more niche adaptations, some which were successes and others stuff like Howard the Duck. Swamp Thing, Timecop, Tank Girl, Barb Wire, Virus, The Crow, Judge Dredd, these were all adaptations of properties with relatively limited followings, and some of them managed to greatly increase just how many people had heard of the IP.

For instance, The Crow. Or, as another example, The Mask. But that 1994 money printer, which was one third of Jim Carrey’s amazing debut year as a Hollywood leading man, was assuredly meant to be a one off.

What Makes Son of the Mask Such a Disaster?

First off, John Arcudi and Doug Mahnke’s The Mask comics are actually extremely violent. He has a since of humor like Carrey’s version in the movie, but “Big Head” is pretty much a hyper-violent sadist. Even the person beneath the mask, Stanley Ipkiss, is quite different. The movie version of Ipkiss is a little depressed, but he absolutely is portrayed as having a good heart above all else, as opposed to a deeply disturbed individual.

In other words, Chuck Russell’s The Mask was already a departure from the source material. Then, Son of the Mask took its departures and upped them to eleven. This thing is all slapstick all the time, and that slapstick isn’t written to appeal to all ages, it’s written to appeal directly to children. Yet even kids know when they’re being pandered to, so there’s little doubt that most kids who went to see this in theaters were nearly as memorable as the parents who drove them there.

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Then there’s the fact that its narrative feels even farther removed from its successful predecessor than its tone. The only one who came back was Ben Stein for the unimportant role of Doctor Arthur Neuman.

Instead of Ipkiss, we get Jamie Kennedy (intermittently doing a Carrey impression) as Tim Avery, and it further solidifies the notion that he was only good as Randy Meeks in the first two Scream movies. When given center stage his pseudo-schtick became unbearable, truly in line with the Pauly Shores of the world.

This is a movie that truly had too much sugar in its breakfast. It’s constantly bounding across the room yet not once does the script ever bother to make any of its antics worthwhile. And, while it’s odd that all of a sudden we’re getting Odin and Loki in a Mask sequel (Loki is merely mentioned once in the 1994 movie), at least Alan Cumming plays the latter. Unfortunately, the movie manages to make even him look pretty bad, even though he’s just Looney Tunesing it up to get on the right wavelength.

Some of the worst movies ever made have so bad it’s good merits that make them entertaining while viewed through the right lens. Son of the Mask is not one of them.

Did you see Son of the Mask in theaters? Did you stay all the way through? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!