Dumb and Dumber To Review

Directed by Bobby Farrelly and Peter Farrelly

Summary:

While this sequel 20 years in the making does have some occasionally funny moments, “Dumb and Dumber To” has too many flat and stale jokes to make it worth recommending. Almost everything about it feels outdated.

Story:

This is the sequel to the 1994 film “Dumb & Dumber.”

After losing the love of his life, Lloyd Christmas has spent the last 20 years in a mental institution in a seemingly comatose state. His friend Harry Dunne has loyally visited him every week and attended to his every need. So imagine his surprise when he discovers that Lloyd has been faking the entire time as part of an elaborate practical joke.

Reunited, Harry tells Lloyd that he needs a kidney transplant. Unfortunately, he needs a blood relative to donate one. As luck would have it, Harry discovers that he has fathered a child 21 years ago with Freida Felcher. Now Lloyd and Harry must go on a cross-country road trip in order to meet his long lost daughter Penny. However, the two will have to face hit men, cranky geniuses, and dirty old ladies along the way.

“Dumb and Dumber To” is rated PG-13 for crude and sexual humor, partial nudity, language and some drug references.

What Worked:

While the original “Dumb & Dumber” is a guilty pleasure of mine, this sequel was a pretty big disappointment. Still, even the worst films can have fun moments and this is no exception.

Some of the funniest scenes in “Dumb and Dumber To” involve the supporting cast or background characters. For example, in one scene, we meet Harry’s new roommate Ice Pick who is cooking blue meth in full “Breaking Bad” attire in the kitchen. As the scene unfolds, Harry’s cat licks some of the meth and then proceeds to swing on the chandelier in the background. It takes a lot to upstage Jim Carrey, but the high cat did it. And only after the credits rolled did you realize that the masked Ice Pick was Farrelly Brothers friend Bill Murray. In another scene we meet Harry’s parents? who are both Asian. His mother also barely speaks English. The scenes with them are some of the highlights of the film. Late in the movie, we meet a group of black, Asian, and Hispanic men with incredibly thick Canadian accents. (Come to think of it, a lot of the funniest jokes involve putting a new spin on racial stereotypes.)

Also fun is Rachel Melvin as Penny, Harry’s daughter. Melvin is amusing as the ditzy daughter that doesn’t fall far from the family stump. She, too, manages to steal scenes from Jim Carrey, particularly in a moment that takes place in a Mexican-Chinese fusion restaurant. (The Mariachi band is all Asian – a cinematic first.)

Unfortunately, most of the rest of the film is pretty disappointing.

What Didn’t Work:

As I watched “Dumb and Dumber To,” I couldn’t help but feel sorry for a lot of the cast. As Harry and Lloyd verbally abuse Kathleen Turner’s character about how ugly she’s gotten over the years, it just seemed really sad. In another scene, an elderly woman tricks Lloyd into sexually pleasuring her. As the scene played out, I just felt sorry for the older actress as she was little more than a prop for Carrey’s gross-out humor. In another scene, a young girl is used for an incredibly awkward period blood joke that’s just not funny. Plenty of other jokes fall utterly flat in this sequel. One cameo that’s supposed to be fun features June Shannon from “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” as Harry’s trailer trash wife in a dream sequence. Considering her current controversy, it’s an ill-timed cameo.

The film also tries too hard to hearken back to the previous film. Brady Bluhm is brought back as Billy for more blind kid jokes that go nowhere. Harry and Lloyd also manage to find their old dog car in a coincidence so unlikely that it screams desperation to try and rekindle some of what made the first film fun. To underline that desperation, they even roll scenes from the first film during the credits.

As for Jim Carrey as Lloyd Christmas and Jeff Daniels as Harry Dunne, they don’t really have anything new to offer either. There are no memorable moments or catch phrases like in the first film. There are no clever new jokes. The few fun moments they do offer are more than offset by a weak ending and a script that seems phoned in. With 20 years to come up with something, I expected more. In the end, it’s all just a big disappointment and you realize that the gross-out, crude humor of the Farrellys is probably best left in the ’90s.

The Bottom Line:

Overall, this is an only occasionally funny film that isn’t worth checking out in theaters. I’d wait for the TV version if you’re at all interested.