Ace Ventura Jr.: Pet Detective [2009]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

"Ace Ventura Jr.: Pet Detective" (the way the logo is written made me think it was "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective Jr." but I guess I was wrong) is the straight to video third installment of the "Ace Ventura" series that no one asked for or wanted. Most curiously, we managed to watch this movie because Adam had borrowed it from one of his friends. This means a human over the age of 18 purchased this movie with actual valid currency. Bad idea.

Ace Jr., apparently the offspring of Jim Carey's Ace, tasks himself with finding the lost pets of his classmates and is forcibly tasked with finding the school's lost mascot. Of course, all this gets pushed aside when someone kidnaps an obviously robotic panda and his zookeeper mother gets blamed for it with no more evidence than a few footprints in her place of business. Ace's grandfather comes to take care of him and ties his lineage to the likes of Charles Darwin and Jacques Cousteau. Right. Then Ace forms a team with a shoved-in-the-locker nerd and the girl he likes and annoying shenanigans ensue. There's also a tie-in to the organization that protects ugly animals, plenty of recycled lines from the previous movies, and a rich kid who we thought could potentially be a grown woman in drag. Also, even though the movie took place is 2009, it really genuinely seemed like it was made in the 90s. People did the "loser" sign, the nerd was the kind that movies nowadays know better to stay away from portraying, none of the kids had a cellphone but they did have a boombox, and even little things like the haircuts and occasionally the clothes seemed weirdly dated. It made us want to watch "Brink." "Brink" was a great movie and I will hear nothing to the contrary.

Summarizing Line: "That was a dumb idea."

Best Line:

"We recieved this anonymous tip."

"From who?"

". . . Anonymous."

WTF Line: "I haven't been treated this badly since I got sick in a country with socialized medicine."

[Note: This line was spoken by Ace Jr. and it came out of absolutely no where. And speaking as someone who has actually gotten sick in a country with socialized medicine and went to a walk-in clinic I can say that the level of care is literally the same as with privatized medicine in America]