“Dumb and Dumber To” Peaks With the Sight of a Cat’s Butthole… Seriously

"Dumb and Dumber To" is all fart jokes, and little of anything else.

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Dumb and Dumber To

         
0 2.5 out of 5 stars
Director:
Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly
Starring: Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels, Rachel Melvin, Laurie Holden, Rob Riggle, Kathleen Turner
Screenwriter(s):
Sean Anders, Mike Cerrone, Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly, John Morris, Bennett Yellin
Duration: 110 minutes
Release Date:
November 14, 2014
MPAA Rating:
PG-13

The first problem with making a sequel to Dumb and Dumber 20 years later—a problem that might have been unavoidable—is that playing an idiot is a young man's game. Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels aren't "old," exactly (they're 52 and 59, respectively), but neither do they have the youthful vigor and innocence that made Lloyd and Harry such likable morons in 1994. Coming from men in their 50s, the juvenile buffoonery and slapstick in Dumb and Dumber To often feels wrong, just as it does when children try too hard to appear grown-up.

Once again directed and co-written by Bobby and Peter Farrelly, Dumb and Dumber To offers a handful of solid laughs as it reunites us with good ol' Harry and Lloyd, sending them on another cross-country mission to deliver a package to a woman Lloyd has the hots for. This time it's Harry's daughter, whose existence he has just learned of, and whose mother is played by a self-effacing Kathleen Turner. Carrey and Daniels' infectious enthusiasm helps considerably—a lack of commitment is not among the film's problems—but there's only so much to be done with a tepid, scattershot, overlong screenplay.

The film starts with an amusing explanation for why nothing has happened in Harry and Lloyd's lives since we last saw them, then pauses for a trip down memory lane (Hey, it's the blind kid with the dead bird!) before getting to the real, overcomplicated story. In need of a kidney and lacking any other blood relatives, Harry must find the daughter he coincidentally just learned about, a 22-year-old imbecile named Penny (Rachel Melvin) who's been raised by an eminent scientist (Steve Tom) and his gold-digging second wife, Adele (Laurie Holden). Adele and her bro-tastic lover, Travis (Rob Riggle), are plotting to inherit the scientist's fortune, so Travis must accompany Lloyd and Harry and keep a watchful eye as they drive to El Paso to give Penny a box that supposedly contains a billion-dollar invention.

2.

The screenplay credits a total of six writers. You've heard, perhaps very recently, that "too many cooks spoil the broth,” right? Yeah. You get the impression everyone wrote their material without seeing what the others were doing. That would explain the setups without payoffs, the characters that disappear when they outlive their usefulness, the general sloppiness of tone. Lloyd and Harry's pranks have a meanness that wasn't there before, reducing the guys' lovability. They're often more bratty than childlike.

Still, the film has its moments. When a cat farts out bird feathers, I don't care who you are, that's funny. (The cat's name is Butthole. Why? Because it has one.) It's a movie reviewer's cliché to say that trimming a comedy by 10 or 15 minutes would vastly improve it—and like most clichés, this one is true. Perhaps unrestrained by anything other than the promise to deliver a PG-13 movie, the Farrellys let themselves wander, undisciplined, through the convoluted story with grins on their faces but no purpose in their eyes. Like in another recent comedy sequel, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, it's obvious the filmmakers threw everything they had into it, regardless of whether it would work or not. If there's a Dumb and Dumber 3, it'll need to be more selective than this middling mish-mash.

Eric D. Snider is a contributing writer and film critic. He's got jokes.

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