Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
Twenty years ago the Jim Carrey/Jeff Daniels slapstick gross-out comedy Dumb and Dumber offered something fresh and energetic to the genre – but this now just seems dated.
The original wasn’t for everyone, but was rightly lauded as a comedy game-changer that inspired a generation of copy cats – and properly launched the career of Carrey – but after two decades this recycled follow-up completely lacks ingenuity, and more importantly an abundance of laughs.
The funniest scene is right at the start – the one from the trailer where Carrey’s Lloyd Christmas has been play-acting to Daniels’ Harry Dunne in a care home just for a gag – and, bar literally a handful of other moments, is surprisingly devoid of anything close to the tear-inducing laughter of the first film.
And to make things worst, some of the humour set-pieces and one-liners really fall flat – with some having some uneasy sexism thrown in to boot.
This time Lloyd and Harry go on another road trip to find Harry’s newly-discovered daughter (the remarkably wooden Rachel Melvin), and get caught in a plot by her Step-Mum (Laurie Holden) – with the help of her lover Travis (Rob Riggle) – to try and kill her foster Dad (Steve Tom).
Throw in a bizarrely unfunny cameo from Bill Murray, and a by-the-numbers turn from the once-esteemed Kathleen Turner – then you’ve really got a comedy that squarely ends up on its backside.
After twenty years this doesn’t really fit the bill for the 35-40 age demographic that saw the film first time round, nor the current crop of the MTV generation – and is quite the head-scratcher that script-writers couldn’t come up with something more tangible in all this time.
For sentimentality purposes and the odd funny gag it just about ends up shy of absolutely abysmal – but it looks like the Farrelly Brothers’ time in movie comedy circles has just about come to an end after this major disappointment.
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CAST: JIM CARREY, JEFF DANIELS, KATHLEEN TURNER, ROB RIGGLE, LAURIE HOLDEN, RACHEL MELVIN, STEVE TOM & BILL MURRAY
RUNNING TIME: 1 HR 49 MINS
DIRECTOR: THE FARRELLY BROTHERS
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Gavin Miller
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