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Topics: Film and TV, Jim Carrey, Entertainment
Cameron Frew
It's been 25 years since Jim Carrey's physical comedy reached the peak of its power. Remember, the pen is blue.
Comedy changed with Carrey's arrival in 1994: Ace Ventura became an instant genre icon; The Mask was an early comic book smash-hit; and Dumb and Dumber made stupidity an art form.
Over the next three years, he'd return once more as the Pet Detective, embrace his darker side (though not as grim as his later, eikositriophobic years) in The Cable Guy, and put his buffoonery up against the Bat as the Riddler. He was already a star, and then he made Liar Liar.
Reuniting with Ace Ventura director Tom Shadyac, who he'd later work with on Bruce Almighty, Carrey delivers a contorting, exhausting, incredible turn in Liar Liar, a simple parable with a timeless reminder: being a pathological liar is bad.
Carrey stars as Fletcher Reede, a divorced father and lawyer who can't get through life without telling porkies, whether it's lying to win a case or making up excuses for his family. After missing his son's birthday party, he's cursed with a magic wish: for an entire day, he's unable to tell a single lie – even something as mundane as saying a blue pen is red.
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Speaking from personal experience, so much of Liar Liar is supremely GIFable: that moment where he laughs and walks away with a sneer; spluttering his water and shouting 'Come on!'; feigning shock; or grabbing his hair in frustration in the courtroom.
Speaking to The Ledger for the film's release, he said: "When I did it, I didn't think it was gonna be so physically demanding, but it really was, because it was this constant suppression of angst, completely freaking out all the time. I would go home with total exhaustion."
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That strain was worth it, as the movie earned more than $300 million at the box office, as well as critical acclaim. Even Roger Ebert, who wasn't particularly keen on Carrey's earlier work, wrote: "I am gradually developing a suspicion, or perhaps it is a fear, that Jim Carrey is growing on me."
Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times also wrote: "As Liar Liar proves one more time, there is probably no more consistently funny performer working in film today."
Carrey may not be the prolific comic for today's generation – that said, he's returning for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 this month - but his exploits were, and will remain legendary.
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