REVIEW: Dumb & Dumber To (2014)

Runtime: 110 Mins
Rated: PG-13
What To Expect: One part Farrellys, two parts Wayans…

I wonder if the Farrelly brothers are hard up for cash, and that this was the reason behind this embarassement.  Ever see those Police Academy films on TV where your natural instinct is to change the channel, but you somehow can’t resist looking, because of how unfunny it all is, and just sit there squeezing the remote tightly?  That’s probably what this movie is comparable to, especially if you’re not the type to walk out of a movie.  The original film was bold and could’ve fallen flat on its face quite easily.  Doing it again risked that, and it has happened.

Anyway, as you have probably gathered from the trailer and/or synopsis, Lloyd Christmas accompanies Harry Dunn on a road trip to seek out the daughter he did not know he had in order to extract a kidney from her to supplant his own ailing organ.  If you had raised that idea as a potential sequel in, say, 1996, it would’ve sounded good.  It is a good broad premise, but the story and gags fail it.  There are too many crappy twists and unwanted siblings.  Despite coming 20 years later it feels like the jokes were written on a deadline, forced, like the Farrellys were doing it for non creative reasons.  Maybe Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels were in the same boat.

I’ll tell you what this is like.  The new episodes of The Simpsons, or most episodes since around 2000.  You have characters that were once effortlessly entertaining and funny now just appearing in horribly awkward skits.  Maybe the worst offence here is that the two friends are just too dumb.  The genius of the original was that both men were prone to acts of obscene stupidity, but always with an undertone of rudimentary reason.  In Dumb & Dumber To, it’s just outright and unbelievably dumb, beyond humor.  Lazy.

The only two good things going here are Carey and Daniels’ undeniable chemistry, with a good dose of nostalgia and those are what keep it from being downright terrible. But it is let down by even the tired ‘young new cast member’ chestnut – Dunn’s daughter is both unfunny and unwanted.  It’s also too long, was a shorter runtime and more consideration for the jokes all that difficult?  It’s less Farrelly brothers and more Wayans brothers and I am really disappointed to have to say that.

Dumb & Dumber To is out of creative gas by the ten minute mark.