They say separation makes the heart grow fonder; I find that this applies to sequels, specifically comedies. One of the main selling points of a comedy are the characters. Without the characters, there is no engagement to the humor and antics, making them rudderless. Therefore, having a prolonged amount of time until developing a sequel to the comedy can work in its favor, as the audience will be craving to see the characters again. The film itself can be lukewarm, but simply seeing the characters again can make up for that.
Unfortunately, this theory doesn’t apply to “Dumb and Dumber To.” While it’s great to see Harry & Lloyd again, it doesn’t take long to realize they don’t have much material to work with. Let me rephrase that. Harry & Lloyd have enough material to work with, but the Farrelly Brothers don’t mine enough good jokes from it.
It’s been twenty years since Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) got his heart broken by Mary Samsonite. This has left him in a catatonic state, resulting in him resided in a mental institution for two decades. Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels) comes to visit him weekly, but breaks the news that, due to a medical condition, he has to cease visiting. It’s at this time that Lloyd finally reveals he’s been faking it for the past twenty years, all for one big gag. Harry, unsurprisingly, finds this to be awesome, then proceeds to rip Lloyd’s catheter out. Well, he tries to, anyway.
Once they arrive home, Harry reveals he needs a kidney transplant or else he’ll die. Lloyd, too afraid to go through with the procedure, states he’s not a good match, so he suggests going to his parents for one. It’s here that Harry discovers an old letter from Fraida Felcher, stating that she’s pregnant with his child. Once the duo puts two and two together and realize the child is now an adult, they embark on finding him/her in hopes of getting a kidney transplant.
They immediately track down Fraida (Kathleen Turner), though they at first mistake her for a man. Kathleen Turner takes a lot of abuse in this film, but it’s seemingly in good nature, and she seems to be having fun with the jokes, so I’ll let slide. To be completely honest, a few of the jokes made me chuckle. She informs Harry & Lloyd that she had to give her daughter up for adoption and was never able to contact her. The only letter she ever sent to her was returned with a message to cease contact. Desperate, the two decide to track her down anyway, leading to the film’s best gag where they drive to Fraida’s house, mistaking the return address for the sender address. It’s their reaction that really sells it.
So far, we’re off to a decent start. The daughter objective gives them an excuse to go on another road trip, which was a big drawing point of the first film. Before I criticize this film for producing limited scenarios, I must recall that the first film also didn’t garner too many scenarios from the road trip theme. Outside of the ski resort, most of it was spent on the road, in diners, or in motels. The difference between that film’s limited set pieces and this one’s is that the first film had many tremendous gags surrounding the limited scenarios, as to where this one’s fall short.
It’s not that the Farrelly Brothers didn’t try to load this movie with memorable moments. There’s enough situations to sink one’s teeth into. These include lighting a motel room ablaze with fireworks, riding a Zamboni, infiltrating a science convention in which Harry’s daughter is giving a speech, and accidentally fingering an old woman (there’s no better way to put), just to name a few. That last one in particular actually made me cringe instead of laugh, especially with the punchline being that her vagina is dusty. I will admit calling her vagina a “grandgina” got a laugh out of me. The problem is that scenario, and the others mentioned, aren’t funny overall. They may make you smirk, but they don’t make you guffaw. I hate to compare it to the first one, as I like to take a film on its own merits (yes, even sequels), but the original film had numerous laugh-out loud moments. This one may have had two.
I’ll admit to chuckling quite a fair bit during the runtime of “Dumb and Dumber To.” However, I’m only a little over an hour removed from my viewing of the film and I can’t remember most of what I chuckled at. That’s the biggest disappointment of them all. I’ll be honest, I went into this film with low expectations. All I wanted out of it was a few good laughs and to smile. While I chuckled arguably enough, I didn’t retain most of it and kind of grew tired of this film. I don’t want to sound like I’m completely bashing it, as there are good qualities to be found. But, there’s not enough to justify revisiting these characters.
I’m reminded of “American Reunion.” That was a sequel sold completely on seeing the characters once again, after having been away from them for a while. That film was a little underwhelming as well, but had so many characters to get reacquainted with, that I was a little more forgiving with it. Here, there are only three returning characters: Harry, Lloyd, and the blind kid. They got a decent gag out of the blind kid in the beginning, but he’s mostly forgotten about for the rest of the film (and arguably rightfully so).
If the new characters involved had been better written, this may have been a better production. Instead, the two villains, Travis (Rob Riggle) & Adele Pichlow (Laurie Holden), feel like pale retreads of the henchman from the first film. Their mission, which is to murder billionaire scientist Dr. Pichlow (Steve Tom) to gain his fortune, as Adele is married to him, helps move the story along, but not much humor is derived from it. There’s a running gag of Travis’ special ops identical brother being a master in camouflaging, but that gets dropped rather quickly.
The big new character that could’ve help make this film is Harry’s daughter, Penny (Rachel Melvin). Despite not being raised by Harry, she somehow inherited his dimness. I realize the joke here is that, despite being raised by a genius, she has the genes of a dense man, but that falls flat. Watching Melvin try and imitate Harry grows tiresome quickly, despite her cute, perky personality. Lloyd’s sexual obsession with her also grows tiresome quickly. I feel that, had they made Penny a genius, they could’ve attracted a multitude of funny gags from her interacting with her dimwitted father.
I will give credit where credit is due; for an hour-and-fifty minute film, this is paced well. It’s only near the finale that the film starts to drag its feet. Up until then, it moves at a quick pace. I’ll also give credit to Carrey & Daniels for stepping back into Harry & Lloyd’s shoes and not missing a beat, even though Lloyd seems a bit crueler now. He reminds me of Homer Simpson; he started off innocently selfish, only to now seemingly evolved into simply being selfish.
I did like seeing Harry & Lloyd once again after twenty years, as I’m not counting the wretched prequel. However, I stopped caring about them halfway through the film. They may have made me smirk a few times throughout, but that wasn’t enough to want to stay in their presence. Think of this like a high school reunion; it’s great to see old friends again, but you slowly realize there’s a reason you lost contact with him. Only this time, you actually wanted to get back into contact with them, only then to discover it was probably better had you didn’t.
P.S. Apparently, Jennifer Lawrence has a cameo in this film, but I don’t recall seeing her. Either her cameo went over my head, it was after the credits (which I didn’t stay for), or they cut it.
Final Rating: C+