Carrey plays the title character - a pet detective. His "job" is to solve mysteries and crimes involving animals in distress.

The word job is used loosely because it's what he does with hopes of making a living, but he never seems to get paid - a fact his landlord laments.

The film begins with a hilarious scene showing what everyone knows the deliveryman does with that very important package marked "fragile."

The deliveryman turns out to be Ace in disguise - his ploy to get close to a stolen/missing dog.

"What's in the box?" asks the dog's captor. "Sounds broken," says Ace, adding: "I bet it was something nice though."

It looks like Ace might actually make something of himself when Snowflake the dolphin - American football team Miami Dolphins' mascot - goes missing just days before the Superbowl, the biggest game of the year.

Miami sends for the one-and-only Ace Ventura and he's handed the biggest job opportunity of his life - find Snowflake.

Carrey has no problem overriding plot considerations and he takes control of the film with his wonderful improvisation, which is a big reason for its runaway success.

His rubber face, alongside the resolutely straight-faced Courtney Cox, made this silly but hilarious comedy a mammoth hit with children as well as the "big kids" amongst us.

It's hard not to laugh at a film whose leading man says things like "spank-you very much" when he's not talking out of his rear or starting a fight with a man in a chicken suit.

This is the film that made Jim Carrey, his animal antics and facial contortions lead to box-office gold and turned him into a megastar.

Dominic Bloch