There's Something About Mary (1998) Reviews

• Ya gotta have a sense of humor!

  lambiepie-22003-04-22

  When this film came out with all of the PR and things, I hated it. I hated it without even seeing it. Then, as with many movies, I caught this on Digital Cable TV, by accident. I had NO intention of seeing it, but once I did, I cannot tell you how much I loved it. This is the Farrley Brothers at their funniest. The idea is simple, a guy (Ben Stiller) who had a crush on a woman (Carmen Diaz) he knew since high school and continued to yearn for her privately, finally getting an opportunity to try to reconnect what never got going. This is something almost everyone can identify with. What makes this work...is its a dead-on hard hitting comedy. The Farrley Brothers spared no one: male or female, handicapped or able bodied, black or white, rich or poor, job or not, straight or gay, animal or vegetable, blonde or brunette, educated or not. It is NOT a cinematic masterpiece so don't look for one, it is not a punch line comedy or slapstick comedy, it is sophomore humor done very well because you're going to be laughing at what you think you shouldn't no matter how much you want to say you would never laugh at something like that. Plus the Farrley Brothers added in "some things" that...well... may have just happened to you at some point in your adolecence, and put a comedic/gross quality to it that shocks you into laughing at it. All through the film you might laugh because you're thinking, "Better them than me".....even if it was you! Not for eveyone's taste, even those who think they know comedy, but this is that kinda comedy that is hard to do once you've reached maturity and forgotten what it was like to laugh at simple things. This is as simple as it gets. Don't put too much into it, it is what it is, and to me, it was really funny! Good Show!

• Unconventional satire stays on course while delivering major laughs

  rachdeveraux2000-04-21

  A lot of my friends said they hated this, but after i saw it and loved what I saw, it became apparent that many of these people hadn't seen it, they just KNEW they would hate it from the degradingly mysoginistic slapstick it supposedly represented. Sorry, wrong movie. This is a classic satire, replete with balladeer narrator. The gags flow fast and funny and expertly walk the tightrope between politically incorrect and unkind. This is surprisingly a movie that is very true to itself and its characters with a lot of plotlines that tie up nicely in unusual ways. And, it's a feel-good movie too. Cameron Diaz and Ben Stiller are marvelous together in the leads.

• There's Something About Mary

  Coxer991999-06-13

  Insanely off the wall comedy from the Farrelly Brothers that delivers from start to finish. Wonderful early sequence with Keith David as Diaz's father busting heavily braced Stiller's chops. Stiller's zipper scene goes down as one of the funniest and most painful things I have ever witnessed on film. Diaz is divine the woman of Stiller's dreams...Dillon is hired to find Diaz...He falls in love with her and gives Stiller a bum story... Lee Evans, a pizza boy, is in love with her too... then Brett Favre comes into the picture. Every scene has something memorable from Dillon's attempts at reviving a dog to Stiller's "pre date entertainment." A classic that doesn't take itself too seriously.

• A real trend-setter.

  Boba_Fett11382011-07-10

  Whenver we refer to modern comedies I think we have to go all the way back to "There's Something About Mary" to see where this all started. It set the new standards for comedy and also became a much imitated movie. Movies however very rarely reached the level of this movie ever again, including all of the Farrelly brothers own later work. It's the sort of raunchy comedy, that makes some completely inappropriate jokes and makes for instance fun of both psychically and mentally handicapped people, among many other things. This is the foremost reason why some people can't really stand this movie but luckily most others are able to see the talent and effort that were put into making this movie and why the movie works out so well. As strange as it sounds, it's actually a real subtle done comedy. It's not predictable in any way and the build up and execution of it is spot on. It even makes all of the moments, that usually seem like something totally lame and forced, work out as something hilarious. It also has a great, yet very simple premise, of a bunch of guys all falling for the same girl. It's the sort of story that provides the movie with plenty of silly comical moments, in which the characters lie and constantly are backstabbing each other, all to get the girl in the end. Cameron Diaz forms the perfect centerpiece for this movie and the movie is filled with plenty of comical characters, all played by some capable genre actors. This movie is still from the time when it was cool to like Ben Stiller and yes, he also really is perfect in his role. But basically everyone is perfectly cast in this, which is obviously also a reason why the movie and all of its comedy works out so well. Comedies like this only seem to come once every 10 years, or so. 8/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

• Funniest film since "Blazing Saddles," only sweeter

  slokes2003-12-04

  Did you ever see those annoying pop-up online ads about looking up old high-school friends? Did you ever stop to think that this movie is probably responsible? Really, there could be no other impetus for people to want to revisit the horrors of young adulthood then this sterling advertisement for reaching back and reclaiming the best of your past. Ben Stiller is a sad-eyed magazine writer named Ted who never got over the girl of his high school dreams, Mary, who vanished from his life after a single date in which getting horizontal meant being carted away in an ambulance. Ted has seedy detective Pat Healy (Matt Dillon) investigate a lead in Miami. Healy finds her and reports back that she's a walrus in a wheelchair. Ted thinks maybe he should check up on her anyway, to see if he can be helpful to her, but Healy explains she's now en route to Japan as a mail-order bride. Ted: What are they, desperate! She's a whale. Healy: It's a sumo culture. They pay by the pound. Actually, Healy is not being entirely truthful. Mary is single, ambulatory, and quite the fox in the form of Cameron Diaz. By the time Ted learns the truth, Healy's already putting on the moves on Mary with the help of a fake identity and a pair of gargantuan dentures. To counter this, without himself being exposed as a `stalker,' Ted has to reintroduce himself under similarly false pretenses. Will Mary go for this old near-flame? And what will happen when she learns the truth? A winning romantic comedy with gut-busting boundary-breaking bathroom humor and a sly sense of what makes people tick, `There's Something About Mary' is impossibly optimistic and reassuring even as it buries your head in the gutter for cheap laughs. That's probably what redeems it and makes it such a joy to watch over and over again, the fact that this proto-`American Pie' has a real heart. The makers of the film, Peter and Bobby Farrelly, reveal in their DVD commentary that Ted's reaction to Healy's news of Mary's condition is the key to making the film work, and they are right. Frankly, I could live in a world without `American Pie' and so many other stupid raunch-fests of its ilk, but `Mary' is pure gold all the way through. Not only is the comedy saved by virtue of its brilliance (I never heard a theater laugh so hard all the way through as I did seeing this in a stuffy Greenwich, CT cinema), it's also a very cleverly put-together film, with a lot of plot twists that hold up as well as the humor during repeat viewings. It's interesting to read people's comments and see them say that it would have been a good film if they had held off on the bad-taste stuff. That was kind of what put it on the map in the first place, the `hair gel' scene and Magda's breasts and Ted's zipper problems, but I see what they mean. You almost could make this film into a Hallmark romantic film, with minimal comedy of any kind, and it would still be interesting. I don't think I'd watch it 23 times like I have this version, however. The film never stops upping the ante on the ick-meter, a large part of what makes it brilliant. Diaz and Stiller blend very well together, with special kudos to Diaz for being so utterly wonderful and charming in the title role. You understand what the title means without ever having it explained. Also terrific are the supporting players, major ones like Matt Dillon and Chris Elliott as well as Harland Williams as the six-minute abs guy and, of course, Puffy the dog. Jonathan Richman and his drummer are especially valuable in their cameo bits that bookend the various acts in the movie, with songs that manage to be as funny and affecting as the show they are built around. And the end credit sequence is the all-time best. I still smile when I hear `Build Me Up Buttercup' on the radio, don't you?