Movies - Son of the Mask

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	Movies - Son of the Mask

Son of the Mask is the 2005 sequel to the 1994 comedy film, The Mask, directed by Lawrence Guterman. The movie is considered to be a box office bomb due to its $84 million budget and subsequent $17 million box office gross.

Plot

Tim Avery (Jamie Kennedy), an aspiring cartoonist, is feeling reluctant to become a father when he has to take care of a baby with amazing abilities. The baby possesses strange powers that he uses to torture his father. The baby was conceived while his father was wearing the Mask of Loki (Tim looks like a poor man's Seth Green when he has it on), a mythological object that transforms the wearer into a manic shapeshifter alter-ego. As bad as a baby with godlike powers might seem, there is also the family dog, Otis, who is trying to use the Mask to do away with his competition for Tim's affection. But the really bad news is that Loki (Alan Cumming) wants his mask back, under command by his father Odin.

Basically, it plays out like a Roadrunner and Coyote cartoon between the baby and Otis for awhile, while short scenes of Loki trying to find the child born of the mask, since if he finds the child, he will find the mask, he doesn't care about the baby. Eventually, Loki finds the baby, and fights them. This results in Odin taking away Loki's powers, since Odin doesn't know the baby was right in his arms, since he was possessing Avery at the time.

Loki summons Odin, and convinces him to give him his powers back for an hour, to get his mask back. He threatens Avery into showing up with the mask or else he will never see his son again. Eventually, it ends in a brawl between Loki and Avery donning the mask, then Loki figures they are evenly matched opponents, lets the baby decide, who chooses Avery. Odin comes back down to yell at Loki more, which causes Avery to just give the mask to Loki, then Loki and Odin go to the godworld happily.

Tagline: The next generation of mischief.

Main cast

Jamie Kennedy
— Tim Avery
Alan Cumming
— Loki
Ryan Falconer and Liam Falconer — Alvey Avery
Traylor Howard
— Tonya Avery
Bob Hoskins
— Odin
Ben Stein
— Dr. Arthur Neuman
Peter Flett — Mr. Kemperbee
Jane Ross — Betty

Voice actors

Richard Steven Horvitz
— Otis the Dog

Trivia

Is on the IMDb's Bottom 100 Movie List Of All Time.

Reaction

The critical reaction was almost unanimously negative about the film. Getting an average grade of "D" in most movie websites, Son of the Mask was a critical and box office failure, and an instant camp classic.

Richard Roeper (of Ebert & Roeper) said about the film:

"In the five years I’ve been co-hosting this show, this is the closest I’ve ever come to walking out halfway through the film, and now that I look back on the experience, I wish I had."

The sequel, originally planned shortly after the first movie, even featured a contest in Nintendo Power magazine to win a small part in the film (it is unlikely this prize was honored so many years later). However, Jim Carrey's non-involvement cancelled the planned The Mask 2. Many fans had also hoped for a darker film based on the original comics in the wake of Hellboy's success at theaters. However, the character seems to have fallen out of favor with the Dark Horse owners in the past few years (the last known book was published in 2001).

Mythology

Despite having a mythological background, nearly all the mythology in the movie is inaccurate. Odin is not the father of Loki, he's his bond brother. Loki is also not Thor's brother. He also was never said to be chained under the earth, he was bound by intestines and having acidic venom poured on him. See Loki.

In fact, the movie even contradicts the mythology established by The Mask. In the first film, a scene filmed (but cut) set in the past saw Vikings sailing to the "new land" to bury the mask (this scene may or may not be a DVD bonus—it did, however, make it into the official comic book adaptation and is considered canon) as Loki had been trapped inside the mask as a form of imprisonment. Professor Neuman later makes a comment believing the mask may be just that (to a degree, as Neuman didn't believe in the stories). The sequel, thus, is impossible—Loki cannot be trying to regain "his mask" if he's trapped inside.

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