Director: Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly
Cast: Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels, Rob Riggle, Lauria Holden, Rachel Melvin, Steve Tom, Kathleen Turner
Certificate: 15
Running Time: 109 minutes
Synopsis: Harry (Daniels) and Lloyd (Carrey) go on a road trip to find Harry’s long lost daughter, hoping she will also donate Harry a kidney.
20 years they’ve made us wait and in that time we’ve endured the afterbirth of many a Jim Carrey project from the 1990s in the form of a mediocre TV show and a terrible follow-up with no involvement from Carrey. However, now it seems as though Carrey has decided to put his sequel shunning aside and return to one of his most popular characters along with Jeff Daniels, who has really pushed his critical acclaim to the limits by gracing us with The Newsroom.
DUMB AND DUMBER is one of those films that seems to get better with age. I loved it when I was young, then became too cool for such stupid humour, and then realised that there was great intelligence in the idiocy on display. With DUMB AND DUMBER TO it’s almost as though such feelings towards the film are condensed into the running time rather than being spread out over 20 years. The film starts off pretty poorly with jokes falling flat or having been done to death in the trailer. The turning point comes about 20 minutes in when a joke hits so hard that it breaks the icy walls of trepidation.
Around the same time, Carrey and Daniels both inhabit their roles again naturally. For the opening of the film it certainly comes across as though Carrey and Daniels are shaking out the creases in their performances, acting like the characters from the first film instead of becoming them in a more natural way. Thankfully, by the film’s conclusion you forget it’s been 20 years between original and sequel.
The humour is very much similar to the original. You have stupid misunderstandings, explicit and highly detailed flashbacks, and pranks that get out of hand. These moments always seem to work, but it must be said that there is a nastier streak which runs throughout the performances this time that suggests a subtitle could have been ‘Mean and Meaner’. There was an innocence to Harry and Lloyd before, but that’s been stripped away for a crueler edge. The plot involves a simple road trip that also manages to cram in references to the previous film, but the Farrelly’s seem to have been in two minds as to whether they should include such jokes. One, absolutely hilarious moment, sees a hge callback to the original, only for the joke to be cut-off in a hilarious fashion. It almost seems to parody comedies too reliant on repeats, but then goes on to do exactly that.
DUMB AND DUMBER TO will delight and disappoint in equal measure but hopefully you’ll not judge it too harshly based on its predecessor. Most disappointing is the lack of attention to detail in terms of editing and visuals. In one scene a character stretches a tattoo and you can clearly see it smudge, while often characters seem to jump around between shots. Carrey and Daniels still have the magic, and although the supporting make perfect targets for many of the jokes, they don’t add too much in terms of substance. Look past those wrinkles, and you’re sure to see a sequel that could have been released at any point in the last 20 years, and although these characters are the kind that will never change or learn anything, they’re also the kind we love to see inflict pain on others.
[usr=3] DUMB AND DUMBER TO is released on 19th December.
