Jim Carrey acts out in Mr. Popper's Penguins: movie review

Actor Jim Carrey in a scene from 'Mr. Popper's Penguin

'Mr. Popper's Penguins' brings out Jim Carrey's usual comedic form, enhanced by half a dozen birds.

Best is one of the funniest performers on the planet at Jim Carrey. Like most great comics, he also decided fairly early that he wanted to be taken “seriously” as an actor, and so he traded in “Ace Ventura” and “Dumb and Dumber” for films like “The Majestic” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”

It’s probably no use trying to convince him, at this late date, especially when his limbs may not be limber, that there’s more artistry in his rubber-man goofiness than in his Oscar-bait earnestness.

In “Mr. Popper’s Penguins,” he’s playing a divorced real-estate shark who flips New York landmarks and has fallen out of favor with both his kids (Maxwell Perry Cotton, Madeline Carroll) and ex-wife (Carla Gugino). A surprise inheritance from his globe-trotting father – a shipment of penguins from the Antarctic – brings out his cuddly side and inevitably bonds the family.

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It’s probably futile by now to hope that Carrey might showcase his comedy in movies that aren’t as mushy with family-entertainment values as this one.

Mark Waters, who directed from material based on the celebrated children’s book by Richard and Florence Atwater, has a flair for goofiness that matches Carrey’s own, and there are scenes between the birds and Mr. Popper in his sleek Manhattan duplex that are peerlessly silly.

I wish there had been even more going on here with Carrey – maybe an outing to the zoo where he gets to imitate every animal in captivity.