Review:
"Dumb and Dumber To"
Release Date: Nov. 14, 2014
Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 110 minutes You would think 20 years would be enough time for Farrelly brothers Bobby and Peter to come up with a funny idea for their sequel to 1994’s Dumb and Dumber. Unfortunately, their script for Dumb and Dumber To feels like a first draft from was left under the seat of Harry Dunne’s Mutt Cuts van for two decades. This time around, Jeff Daniels’ Harry and Jim Carrey’s Lloyd Christmas hit the road to find the 21-year-old daughter (Rachel Melvin) the former did not know he had with Kathleen Turner’s Fraida Felcher. This belated sequel doesn’t add much to the legacy of Dumb and Dumber, which ushered in a new era of gross-out comedies and solidified Carrey as a comic force to be reckoned with. Granted, there are two huge laughs in Dumb and Dumber To that are as hilarious as anything we have seen this year. Otherwise the Farrelly brothers simply rework the best gags from Dumb and Dumber to diminishing returns. One scene involving Harry’s adoptive parents, though, is so shamefully insensitive toward Asian Americans that you have to wonder what the Farrelly brothers were thinking when they wrote and shot it. Together and separately, Carrey and Daniels bust their butts to create as much mayhem as possible on their road trip from Rhode Island to El Paso. Carrey may not be as rubbery as he was 20 years ago but he can still pull off the physical comedy demands required of him with all the necessary slapstick-y skill and agility. As low as this sequel aims, it’s good to have Carrey and Daniels back playing these lovable goofballs and dumbing it down for our amusement. Too bad the Farrelly brothers didn’t see any value in putting Carrey and Daniels in a sequel that’s smart dumb instead of just plain old dumb dumb. Robert Sims Aired: Nov. 13, 2014 Web site: http://www.dumblr.com/ |
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