Surprise, Ben Stiller plays Ted, and awkward, shy guy who runs into weird situations where minor misunderstandings lead to major catastrophes. Where have I seen this before...? Anyway, Ted has a small fixation on Mary (Cameron Diaz), whom he was about to take to prom before one of those wacky confusions led to his dick getting stuck in his zipper. Curious about her whereabouts, a friend of his recommends a private investigator to check on her. Turns out he falls in love with her, tells Ted Mary got fat and ugly and tries to seduce her by stalking her and prentending they like the same things. Ted finds out and goes to Florida to get Mary back.
Deep down the premise is nothing new, but some ideas are pretty original.
The film carries over all the clichés of a romantic comedy though. Ted is your usual shy and awkward underdog, and Mary is the perfect, flawless woman that falls in love with him. It kind of pisses me off that so many movies do this. "Hey loners, if you don't have any luck with women, don't worry, just be the sweet and sincere person you are and Cameron Diaz will totally want to fuck you." I could also include all the "it's all just a huge misunderstanding" or "everything gets messed up" scenes, but you could say that the movie was one of the first films to make that style popular. And they work so well you don't really care.
The biggest strength of the film are those parts, really. There might be only five or six of them, but they are long enough to make up for it. Other comedy films, like the Naked Gun series, for instance, have a couple of these tiny disasters and it works well but this film takes it to the extreme. It's not a just bunch of hiccups the characters move on once they are done, no, one mistake leads to another, ussually as the characters try to fix it, and things keep getting worse for five minutes. Like I said, it totally loses shock value after seeing films like Meet the Parents or Along Came Polly, but they are still very entertaining. The opening scene is by far my favorite, where everything that could go wrong, goes wrong. Then there's the visually simple but still incredibly funny interrogation part.
The biggest strength of the film are those parts, really. There might be only five or six of them, but they are long enough to make up for it. Other comedy films, like the Naked Gun series, for instance, have a couple of these tiny disasters and it works well but this film takes it to the extreme. It's not a just bunch of hiccups the characters move on once they are done, no, one mistake leads to another, ussually as the characters try to fix it, and things keep getting worse for five minutes. Like I said, it totally loses shock value after seeing films like Meet the Parents or Along Came Polly, but they are still very entertaining. The opening scene is by far my favorite, where everything that could go wrong, goes wrong. Then there's the visually simple but still incredibly funny interrogation part.
And this.
There's Something About Mary was very influential to the early 2000's comedies, so if you're into those films, you will have a good time with this film. It is a very funny movie, with a basic plot and characters that leave space for gag after gag. Totally worth two hours of your life.
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