Twenty years later, this sequel to the Farrelly Brothers’s popular debut (already prequeled in Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, which I never watched; anyone remember the short-lived cartoon version that ran in 1995?) gives off rank hints of desperation at times. After a two-decade long, catatonic gig in a mental hospital, Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) reunites with Harry Dunne (Athens native Jeff Daniels) on a road trip to meet Harry’s grown daughter (Rachel Melvin), in the hopes she can give Harry the kidney he desperately needs.
Let’s be honest; the narrative of Dumb and Dumber To is its least important part, but that logline is pretty awful, especially since it’s credited to six (?!) writers. No one had a better idea than this? Tsk, tsk, Bobby and Peter. Is the lack of a credible narrative thread why it took 20 years to get this flick to the big screen? Half the story plays like a remake, anyway.
While the scripted gags are expectedly juvenile, they are, sadly, expectedly unfunny as well. A cat on crystal meth may be one of the lamer visual gags, and the characters’ ceaseless malapropisms grow tiresome. Good thing Carrey and Daniels are so game. They throw their all into reprising these two dumb-dumbs, and their chemistry often overwhelms the underwhelming writing.
One wonders how much of the actual funny jokes were written or improved. Why not just let the two stars make it all up as they go? As the results in the first film—the “most annoying sound in the world” scene—prove, the results should not be less funny. Carrey and Daniels’ dumb duo may be 20 years older, but they play them with the same limber, childlike goofiness, as evidenced by their reaction to the explanation of sex provided by Kathleen Turner’s Fraida Felcher.
I would be remiss not to mention pretty, young Rachel Melvin’s innocently wonderful turn as Harry’s daughter, Penny. Melvin successfully pulls off a Penny who is as sweetly dumb as her deadbeat dad. Melvin’s a fortunate revelation in a comedy where so many of its supporting cast are left out to dry. Not even Rob Riggle can elicit more than a few chuckles as not one, but two characters. His funnel-nuts gag is a winner. Stick through the credits for the movie’s best cameo.
Most damning to this sequel is the immediate realization of how it will probably deteriorate under the scrutiny of repeated viewing. Jokes that may have garnered a first chuckle will trickle away to nothing, and the movie seems to lack the sort of Easter eggs one discovers on additional viewings. One early cameo is given away by a cursory glance at IMDB. I expected more, smarter callbacks to the original. Those moments are mostly either obvious or non-existent. Equidistant between awful and equal to its predecessor, this sequel just proves to have been a dumb(er) idea.
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