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Dumb and Dumber To
Directed by Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly
Released in 2014
Starring Jim Carrey as Lloyd Christmas, Jeff Daniels as Harry Dunne, Rachel Melvin as Penny, Kathleen Turner as Fraida Felcher, Laurie Holden as Adele, Rob Riggle as Travis and Captain Lippincott, Steve Tom as Dr. Pinchelow and Brady Bluhm as Billy in 4C. Special appearance by Cam Neely as Seabass.
A review by Sexy Celebrity on November 14, 2014.
Dumb and Dumber To has a great story. I'll give it that. There's something about the ideas of this movie that I really like. However, the jokes... the humor... what should be the big PAYOFF... are mostly extinct. Dumb and Dumber To is a dry version of the first movie. There's something about this sequel that reminds me a lot of the first movie... but it's like a Diet Coke version. And instead of calories being taken away, it's the laughs. Because of this movie, the movie is largely a failure. I was bored. I was wanting it to end. And yet at the same time, as the movie progressed, I became fascinated. But I said to myself after the first FIVE MINUTES... "I hate this movie already."
The film begins with a DUMB joke that gets referenced more throughout the movie: If you've seen the trailers, you know what it is -- Lloyd Christmas has been living in some kind of institution/hospital for the past twenty years, pretending to be comatose/catatonic. Harry, his best friend, has been visiting him, as well as taking care of him -- which, from all we know, is basically just changing his diapers. I don't like this part of the story. Already we're into a bad, bad joke -- twenty years pretending to be catatonic for a gag? I didn't laugh. How sad that the Farrelly brothers thought it would be funny if Lloyd Christmas had simply wasted twenty years of his life pretending to be a vegetable. Would it have been so hard to give Lloyd a normal twenty years of life?
After this whole fiasco, Lloyd returns to his old apartment. He meets up with Billy in 4C, the blind kid from the first movie, played by the same actor. He now owns a bunch of exotic birds. A horrifying situation happens to Billy in 4C again with his birds, but this time it wasn't as funny as what happened in the first film, when he was given Petey, the dead parakeet. We learn that Harry needs a new kidney and we learn that Harry fathered a child with Fraida Felcher (Kathleen Turner), the sexy town slut who aged into an ugly, mannish funeral parlor director. Fraida's never met the daughter she had with Harry, but since Harry thinks he can get a kidney from the daughter, he takes a hearse from Fraida and he and Lloyd go off looking for her. They get to her house and OMG I am so sick and tired of writing about the plot!
The film's pretty plot heavy. This wouldn't be so bad, though, if it was just funny enough to handle it all. Anyway, they get to the daughter's house -- she's been adopted by a brilliant scientist -- and the brilliant scientist needs to deliver a package to a big, nerdy conference in New Mexico, or something like that, where all these scientists will gather. The package is something he invented "that will change the world" and it is apparently worth billions of dollars. Naturally, his wife, Adele, wants to kill him for the package, with the help of Travis, who is some man that is in the movie and to tell you the truth, I'm not even sure why. I can't remember. He's just Adele's sidekick/secret lover. Naturally, the guys get mixed up in this murder scheme and they become targets. They all get to the science conference in New Mexico, which is very Big Bang Theory. It's also a great place to put Harry and Lloyd -- Harry gets confused for a brilliant scientist and ends up judging a panel of other scientists and their great inventions. One is a machine that can read a person's thoughts and put them on a screen -- Harry winds up being a participant in this machine's demonstration. Again, funny setup, but to me, a disappointing payoff.
There is a Stephen Hawking-like character at this convention. Made me chuckle, but again, the laughs are still very low-key and disappointing for a film like this. Something like Dumb and Dumber To should go beyond the average stupid comedy. This movie really doesn't.
The best stuff about Dumb and Dumber To are not really Harry and Lloyd and any of the old characters. The best stuff is actually the NEW characters. Kathleen Turner is great as Fraida Felcher and I loved the idea of Harry having a daughter, played by Rachel Melvin. She happens to be dumb like the guys, too, so it was fun to see a female version of the Dumb and Dumber guys. I also really liked the villains, which was just what this movie needed to give it a full on campy, old school, original 1990s Dumb and Dumber vibe. Instead of doing something totally different for a sequel, they returned with a theme of villains out to kill the guys again. This, I thought, was good storytelling, since what this movie tries to be is basically a nostalgic look back at the original Dumb and Dumber movie. However... they also go a little TOO nostalgic and too sappy and sentimental. The end credits are beautifully done, but they feature tons of shots from the first Dumb and Dumber movie, as if they're the end credits to THAT movie instead of the sequel.
And if you like looking at Harry Dunne's butt, you're in for a treat, as the butt appears on the screen so much that it feels like Dumb and Dumber porn.
Dumb and Dumber To drags. I checked my watch at one point and was surprised that only an hour had passed. That was SOME hour. It felt like five hours. Jim Carrey was almost dead weight in this. Jeff Daniels made the movie, while Jim mostly seemed like an old, farting corpse being dragged around, a la Weekend at Bernie's. I saw someone else say that Jeff Daniels seemed to get back into the character of Harry more than Jim Carrey got back into the character of Lloyd, and it's true. Harry is largely the heart and soul of the film. There were scenes with Lloyd where I didn't even want/couldn't pay attention. It also hurts that Lloyd looks more ghastly now twenty years later. Those years pretending to be catatonic did him no favors.
Hardcore fans of Dumb and Dumber may like this, while some may also loudly complain. At best, it's great to have more material with these guys available. But Dumb and Dumber To is set to become another forgotten and unloved sequel, I think. Even the Sequel God didn't love it more than the first movie. BUT, looking on the bright side... I think it could have been something much worse. Since it's neither brilliant or completely horrendous, I feel like giving it the standard Mark F rating -- a rating I had in mind while watching this thing:
Directed by Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly
Released in 2014
Starring Jim Carrey as Lloyd Christmas, Jeff Daniels as Harry Dunne, Rachel Melvin as Penny, Kathleen Turner as Fraida Felcher, Laurie Holden as Adele, Rob Riggle as Travis and Captain Lippincott, Steve Tom as Dr. Pinchelow and Brady Bluhm as Billy in 4C. Special appearance by Cam Neely as Seabass.
A review by Sexy Celebrity on November 14, 2014.
Dumb and Dumber To has a great story. I'll give it that. There's something about the ideas of this movie that I really like. However, the jokes... the humor... what should be the big PAYOFF... are mostly extinct. Dumb and Dumber To is a dry version of the first movie. There's something about this sequel that reminds me a lot of the first movie... but it's like a Diet Coke version. And instead of calories being taken away, it's the laughs. Because of this movie, the movie is largely a failure. I was bored. I was wanting it to end. And yet at the same time, as the movie progressed, I became fascinated. But I said to myself after the first FIVE MINUTES... "I hate this movie already."
The film begins with a DUMB joke that gets referenced more throughout the movie: If you've seen the trailers, you know what it is -- Lloyd Christmas has been living in some kind of institution/hospital for the past twenty years, pretending to be comatose/catatonic. Harry, his best friend, has been visiting him, as well as taking care of him -- which, from all we know, is basically just changing his diapers. I don't like this part of the story. Already we're into a bad, bad joke -- twenty years pretending to be catatonic for a gag? I didn't laugh. How sad that the Farrelly brothers thought it would be funny if Lloyd Christmas had simply wasted twenty years of his life pretending to be a vegetable. Would it have been so hard to give Lloyd a normal twenty years of life?
After this whole fiasco, Lloyd returns to his old apartment. He meets up with Billy in 4C, the blind kid from the first movie, played by the same actor. He now owns a bunch of exotic birds. A horrifying situation happens to Billy in 4C again with his birds, but this time it wasn't as funny as what happened in the first film, when he was given Petey, the dead parakeet. We learn that Harry needs a new kidney and we learn that Harry fathered a child with Fraida Felcher (Kathleen Turner), the sexy town slut who aged into an ugly, mannish funeral parlor director. Fraida's never met the daughter she had with Harry, but since Harry thinks he can get a kidney from the daughter, he takes a hearse from Fraida and he and Lloyd go off looking for her. They get to her house and OMG I am so sick and tired of writing about the plot!
The film's pretty plot heavy. This wouldn't be so bad, though, if it was just funny enough to handle it all. Anyway, they get to the daughter's house -- she's been adopted by a brilliant scientist -- and the brilliant scientist needs to deliver a package to a big, nerdy conference in New Mexico, or something like that, where all these scientists will gather. The package is something he invented "that will change the world" and it is apparently worth billions of dollars. Naturally, his wife, Adele, wants to kill him for the package, with the help of Travis, who is some man that is in the movie and to tell you the truth, I'm not even sure why. I can't remember. He's just Adele's sidekick/secret lover. Naturally, the guys get mixed up in this murder scheme and they become targets. They all get to the science conference in New Mexico, which is very Big Bang Theory. It's also a great place to put Harry and Lloyd -- Harry gets confused for a brilliant scientist and ends up judging a panel of other scientists and their great inventions. One is a machine that can read a person's thoughts and put them on a screen -- Harry winds up being a participant in this machine's demonstration. Again, funny setup, but to me, a disappointing payoff.
There is a Stephen Hawking-like character at this convention. Made me chuckle, but again, the laughs are still very low-key and disappointing for a film like this. Something like Dumb and Dumber To should go beyond the average stupid comedy. This movie really doesn't.
The best stuff about Dumb and Dumber To are not really Harry and Lloyd and any of the old characters. The best stuff is actually the NEW characters. Kathleen Turner is great as Fraida Felcher and I loved the idea of Harry having a daughter, played by Rachel Melvin. She happens to be dumb like the guys, too, so it was fun to see a female version of the Dumb and Dumber guys. I also really liked the villains, which was just what this movie needed to give it a full on campy, old school, original 1990s Dumb and Dumber vibe. Instead of doing something totally different for a sequel, they returned with a theme of villains out to kill the guys again. This, I thought, was good storytelling, since what this movie tries to be is basically a nostalgic look back at the original Dumb and Dumber movie. However... they also go a little TOO nostalgic and too sappy and sentimental. The end credits are beautifully done, but they feature tons of shots from the first Dumb and Dumber movie, as if they're the end credits to THAT movie instead of the sequel.
And if you like looking at Harry Dunne's butt, you're in for a treat, as the butt appears on the screen so much that it feels like Dumb and Dumber porn.
Dumb and Dumber To drags. I checked my watch at one point and was surprised that only an hour had passed. That was SOME hour. It felt like five hours. Jim Carrey was almost dead weight in this. Jeff Daniels made the movie, while Jim mostly seemed like an old, farting corpse being dragged around, a la Weekend at Bernie's. I saw someone else say that Jeff Daniels seemed to get back into the character of Harry more than Jim Carrey got back into the character of Lloyd, and it's true. Harry is largely the heart and soul of the film. There were scenes with Lloyd where I didn't even want/couldn't pay attention. It also hurts that Lloyd looks more ghastly now twenty years later. Those years pretending to be catatonic did him no favors.
Hardcore fans of Dumb and Dumber may like this, while some may also loudly complain. At best, it's great to have more material with these guys available. But Dumb and Dumber To is set to become another forgotten and unloved sequel, I think. Even the Sequel God didn't love it more than the first movie. BUT, looking on the bright side... I think it could have been something much worse. Since it's neither brilliant or completely horrendous, I feel like giving it the standard Mark F rating -- a rating I had in mind while watching this thing: