This is what happens when comedians don't want to comedy
Once upon a time, Jim Carrey was a genius of comedy. He had a sense of humor, he was able to do, say and 'express' the unexpected.
He had his ups and downs, he did fluctuate quite a bit between cringy-awful and super funny in his early days, but then he found his stride (or whatever).
He nailed it in Ace Ventura: The Pet Detective - a role that was pretty much tailored for exactly him and no one else. That movie did still have the typical Hollywood-type restrictions, but Jim worked wonders within those restrictions.
It was the sequel, where they let him loose and he could do more of exactly what he wanted, and it shows; it was even more brilliantly hilarious than the first movie.
There were all kinds of other movies and such, but when it came time for "Liar Liar" (I still think it should've been "Liar, Liar", but since when can ANYONE on this planet understand things like 'grammar', 'punctuation', 'the english language' and so on..?), he truly hit comedy gold.
That movie is so funny (even if the story is really boring, bland and ridiculous in the most clichéic way possible, the kid actor doesn't know how to act, and even Jim is awkward and cringy in every scene with the kid, plus the hideous censorship like changing 'strippers' to 'dancing girls' - I NEVER heard of 'dancing girls' before or since, or understood at all what that even meant for a long time), it has some youtuber reactors state it's their FAVORITE movie ever and it's impossible to find anyone who doesn't laugh while watching it.
This was his peak.
The king of comedy and humor had ascended to the mountain top and there's nothing there to challenge him.
Had he continued making 100% pure comedies (even though the makers "Liar Liar" tried very hard to make it a sappy and boring soap instead), he could've remained in that mountain top for a really long time.
Instead, 'the typical' happened; the comedian decided they are a 'serious actor', so doing 'just comedy' isn't good enough for him anymore. He wants to be king of 'everything'.
Obviously someone that can make themselves into things instead of just acting, 'can act', so to speak. Jim can be convincing in a serious role.
The problem is that whenever a comedian does this weird switch (probably ego-based), they not only lose the comedic genius they had, but they just become a 'mediocre serious actor', and during the transition phase, the movies' tones jump around so much the viewer doesn't know what to think or feel anymore.
Comedy is so much harder to do right and making people cry is so much easier than making them laugh, these comedians don't realize what they are throwing away just to join the massive groups of 'serious actors'. They were the big fish in a small pond, then they join the ocean and become just like everyone else.
How can you be 'super expressive' if you are expected to be serious and tear-jerky instead of 'funny'? You can't, or you lose the immersion. So you have to tone it down to 'regular people' level, so you lose what made you special. Because making people laugh is not somehow good enough..
So we get movies like this, that try to be both funny and serious and drama and soap and wacky at the same time. It just doesn't work, you can't just tonally shift this much and have any kind of enjoyable congruency.
The other movies he did that you just don't even know what to think about, are 'The Cable Guy' (it's too 'A' to be 'B', but not enough 'C' to be 'C' and so on, too 'horror' to be comedy, too 'sappy soap drama' to be good, too 'wacky' to be serious, and so on and so forth, it sabotages itself at every turn), etc.
His 'acclaimed' serious movies are also boring and faulty - 'The Truman Show' could NEVER happen as a movie story, if things made even a modicum of sense, if the 'God' people that control his life were even 0.001% competent. It can ONLY happen exactly because unfathomably stupid and ridiculous 'coincidences' and 'information leaks' and other absolutely moronic things are allowed to happen and contradict things we are told. The movie couldn't happen if things and people were even slightly logical and not nonsensical.
The 'spotless' memory movie, YET ANOTHER hollyweird crap where 'memory is physical thing in the brain'-lie is perpetrated (just as tired a cliché as 'a biological clone of your body is somehow you'-stupidity). The effects are cool, I suppose, but the story goes nowhere, and it's supposed to be 'romantic' that two people that fundamentally hate each other somehow 'end up together' (even though they'd have the same problems anyway).
It's also confusing for the audience; first, Jim is established to be a genius comedian, then he just throws it all away and makes all these unbalanced movies and 'serious boredom', so what are we supposed to think/feel about him anymore?
I bet even the most ardent Jim-fans that lap up anything he produces, somewhere in their hearts actually still wish Jim made comedies like 'Liar Liar'..