Most squeals I am opposed to but sequels made twenty years or so after the original are sequels that tick me off the most. This type of sequel could only be made if the original film was a hit because your audience has to come back so many years after. Yeah, I understand if a director is wanting to do a sequel to his early work but a sequel so long after the original makes you look very desperate. A classic example of this is the 2008 Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull which was a sequel twenty five years after the original and nineteen years after the third film. It was filled with silly casting, a plot that was out of place and desperation. This movie casted a bad eye on what once was the finest trilogy around. This year, twenty years after the original, we are finally getting a sequel to Dumb and Dumber.
Put out in 1994 by the Farrelly brothers, Dumb and Dumber was just about the time when Jim Carrey was getting big and took off as a cult film and put the Farrelly brothers on the map. I won't say I'm not necessarily a fan of the Farrelly brothers work though. Yes, they have put forth some original concepts for Hollywood and they know how make money at the box office but I find their recent works of Hall Pass and The Three Stooges to be not funny. I would say I respect Carrey more in show biz than the Farrellys but he has had misses in film with something recent like The Incredible Burt Wonderstone and I have never been fan of actors who are afraid to venture outside of one genre like Carrey seems to be. When it comes to Jeff Daniels, I find him to be a very likable actor and but he is underused and I wish we saw more of him in Hollywood. All this said, I could not go into the Dumb and Dumber To without a little of uneasiness.
Now twenty years later, Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) has been living at a mental institution for these last twenty years. Harry Duane (Jeff Daniels) takes his time one day out of the week to see him until we find out that it was all an elaborate hoax and he learns also that he had a daughter now close to twenty years old with old flame Fraida Felcher (Kathleen Turner). A road trip movie ensues with both trying to find Harry's daughter and Harry reconnecting with Lloyd.
From its new characters which are all not special to began with, very forgettable characters and a new plot with a concept that is a little cliched, these are the new things to this installment. Still though, this is a sequel that tries to survive through nostalgia and the main nostalgic pieces are the two main characters themselves. Ever since since I was little, I have always felt the same about Harry and Lloyd. They are not the type of guys you want your teenage daughter bringing home and yes they are unrealistic characters but as something like Wayne and Garth from Wayne's World, they are hard not to like. This sequel gives us non-stop jokes through these characters which are sometimes very clever and well written jokes. Harry gives us no background on what he's been doing for the last twenty years and this is left to the audience to decide. These characters did not grow up at all but we also didn't expect them to. Carrey and Daniels know how to bring that same charm from the original movie and the chemistry couldn't be better between them.
As for many comedies, this follows the same formula for a road trip movie. The first act sets up the road trip, the second act is where the journey happens and third act is where it all unfolds and then the road trip ends. This road trip film doesn't use atmosphere very much and the plot does wander at times. It is third act where the movie unfolds and is where the movie gets going. Using a tech/science convention as a last setting, an original idea in its own right, we watch a third act full of twists and turns that comes as unpredictable fun.
I can't say I got much out of Dumber and Dumber To but it does work perfectly wasting a Sunday afternoon as I did but not much more than that. For a sequel though coming so late after the original, this could have been so much worse though. This is a barely above average comedy really only made for die-hard fans of the first one. Somehow I think a third installment is coming.
3/5
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