Liar Liar – Movie Review

*MAJOR SPOILERS*

Well, it looks like we got another comedy here on theVade. Was it better than Sausage Party? Lets find out.

Liar Liar is a 1997 comedy/drama film directed by Tom Shadyac, and stars Jim Carrey who was also nominated for a Golden Globe for best Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Comedy/Musical following this film. The film follows a fast-talking attorney and habitual liar who is forced by his son’s birthday wish to tell the truth for the next 24 hours.

Before I begin I just want to address something real quick. Many people don’t like Jim Carrey, and many people love him. I personally don’t mind him. Yes, I think he over does it sometimes, but that’s just who he is. Love it or hate it, I won’t judge this film based on those ideas alone. So moving on, I enjoyed this film. It had some moments that I felt were extremely cheesy and just plain predictable, but this movie wasn’t set out to be a complex story like most films theses days. The story was nothing short of modern Hollywood, but that’s not why I watched this film. I watched this movie to laugh, and it did just that. I will say that this film reminded me a lot of Carrey’s other film, Yes Man. I am aware that this film came before Yes Man, but I did want to mention it somewhere in my review.

So lets talk about the comedy. This film definitely had some great comedic moments, my favorite being the “Objection” scene. I might have to argue that this might be one of my new all time favorite comedic moments in any film. There of course are some jokes that fall flat, and fall hard. The scene where he beats himself up was personally not funny to me at all. But scenes like Carrey having sex with his boss and telling her he’s had better, and calling the entire executive board of directors a bunch of horrible names helps make up for all the dry and dull moments that this film does have.

But not only is this film a comedy, as it is also a drama, and that’s where I feel this film takes a turn down boring lane. Although this film portrays a good family message in the end, I feel like it was just thrown in there to have Carrey’s character have a real reason for needing to tell the truth. The birthday wish was extremely cheesy, and a bunch of the scenes between Carrey and the child actor don’t seem genuine enough for me to care about the relationship between Carrey and his son.

The twist at the end was pretty good, if you could even call it a twist, but as soon as Carrey’s character gets to the airport I was completely turned off. The dude would have been arrested and thrown in jail for life. No amount of bail, good deeds, nothing, would have gotten him out of prison. And that’s what I’m talking about when I say the story is cheesy. The director/writer takes things way too far, to the point where I feel it turns the audience off towards the story. But I’ll be honest.. most people don’t care about story when they see these kinds of movies. They just want to laugh.

So to wrap things up, Liar Liar was a good movie, and definitely something I’m glad I had the time to watch. Sure the storyline was crap, and Carrey’s acting is either something you love or hate, but in the end I still decided to give Liar Liar a “Good” on theVade Review Bar. Yeah, it was stupid, but it was funny. And if a movie can get me to laugh hard enough for me to not care about story, then I guess it deserves that rating in the end.