In all three of his 1994 comedy blockbusters (a three-peat no one has pulled off before or since), the scripts didn’t matter, or at least, not the jokes. Carrey’s physicality was the punchline, the engine that propelled the laughs. Part of the audience’s awe was that what his body was doing seemed impossible. Mask director Chuck Russell told The Ringer that he remembers Carrey saying, “You know, sometimes if I can just imagine it, I can make my body do it.”
Like all comedy specials from 1991, there are parts that don’t age well — Carrey does an extended caricature of Middle Eastern pop stars that wouldn’t fly today, for example. But slapstick generally ages better than spoken humor. There’s not much topical going on in Unnatural Act (besides Carrey’s shirt), so his goofy Gumby act still holds up.
If anything, you might find Unnatural Act exhausting since Carrey refuses to let up, even for a second. He imitates a guy who sings so much like a histronic Michael Bolton that his brain explodes. He humps the stage in a happy, orgasmic escape from reality. At one point, he jumps up and down waving his arms for the simple reason that he won’t be able to do it when he’s old. (I suspect 2023 Carrey could still pull it off, though probably not for 45 minutes.) It makes the special as much of an athletic spectacle as stand-up comedy showcase. Thirty minutes in, Carrey is absolutely drenched in sweat:
Showtime Networks
And when the audience calls for an encore, he whips off his soaked shirt and throws it into the stands like a triumphant NBA player after a playoff win. (For some reason, this scene is in an alternate cut of the show.)
Showtime Networks
Carrey ends the show with a “nervous breakdown,” his most honest bit of the night even while he’s throwing his body around the stage like a professional wrestler. It’s the only part of the special where he reveals anything about the real Jim Carrey, confessing that he stopped doing drugs eight years prior not because it was ruining his life but “because it made me more normal.” Only reality can do this, he says.
Showtime Networks
Carrey concludes with a panicked look in the theatrical mirror, leading to a series of cosmic spasms that end with his exhausted body sprawled on the stage, finally lifeless, but only for a moment. There’s nothing left to do but grope the floor for the microphone, stagger to his feet and deliver one last wish for his audience: “I wish I could have done some really weird stuff for you guys.”
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