Steve Martin’s The Jerk aside, is there a more audacious stand-up-to-big-screen debut? Goaded into ever-more fevered improvisations by director Tom Shadyac, Carrey’s manic essence — the contortions, the mimicry, the sheer, glorious, don’t-give-a-shit stupidity — disgorges here. On the trail of a kidnapped dolphin, Ventura arrives at a psychiatric hospital where his chief suspect was treated. To get in, he poses as a potential patient for David Margulies’ poker-faced doctor. Quiff ruffled into a mushroom cloud, resplendent in a pink tutu, Carrey yells: “I’M READY TO GO IN, COACH!” Cue, for absolutely no reason, Carrey impersonating a human video-tape, slurping towards Margulies in super-slo-mo. The body says astronaut stepping on Lego. The face says dinosaur having a stroke. He doubles down: a lunatic playing a maniac. “Let’s see that in an instant replay,” Carrey blurts as he noisily rewinds himself, gibbering in reverse back to his couch. No camera effects. Carrey is the effect. Experiencing it then was to witness an impossible new comedic force, able to warp face, body and time itself. Now, as a GIF, it’s inescapable. Everyone remembers “Alrighty then”, but it’s this dazzling spasm that announced Carrey as a slapstick virtuoso. You can rewind and rewatch the human-video routine a dillion times and splutter yourself inside out every damn time.