The title of Dumb and Dumber To tells you everything you need to know about the film; it is dumb and by the end credits, if by some inhuman feat you manage to last that long, you will feel dumber.
Let’s get what the Farrelly Brothers, the filmmakers behind Dumb and Dumber To, consider a plot out of the way first: Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels) and Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) discover Harry sired a daughter some 20 years ago in a drunken tryst, her mother Fraida Felcher (Kathleen Turner) was forced to give up the child and now Harry and Lloyd take it upon themselves to reunite father and daughter, not with magnanimous intentions but because Harry needs a kidney transplant and Lloyd wants to “bone” Harry’s daughter.
You may remember Jim Carrey from such films as The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and many will recognise Jeff Daniels as the face of ACN’s News Night Will McAvoy in Aaron Sorkin’s aspirational HBO series The Newsroom, the point being that these two actors are now elder statesmen who no longer need to agree to every script that slides under their doors. Perhaps they had fond memories of their time playing Harry and Lloyd, two idiotic but ultimately well-meaning characters.
In Dumb and Dumber To Harry and Lloyd have gone from well-meaning to reprehensible characters who don’t discriminate in their sexism and racism, not to mention poking fun at persons with disabilities and even ridiculing redheads. Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels are both accomplished actors who must have been paid a ton of money to star in this tired, asinine and utterly unfunny sequel to a 1994 film that was of its time and better left there, these guys should have known better than to agree to make this puerile pap.
The Farrelly Brothers prove with Dumb and Dumber To just how anachronistic and out of touch their comedy is. Not only is their comedy objectionable and base, it is also derivative, pulling gags out of their own playbook like when Harry’s cat licks some crystal methamphetamine (oh look, they watched Breaking Bad too) for a little There’s Something About Mary homage.
The rest of the comedy leans hard on the prejudice angle, with shockingly outdated racial stereotypes, fart and dick jokes and some supposedly giggle-worthy names, Fanny Felcher for example, thrown in for good measure.
Dumb and Dumber To is a film that deserves to be denounced, it is all that is wrong with modern cinematic comedy; derivative, base, pointless, mindless, offensive, archaic, and worst of all, its just not funny. Good comedy can be forgiven for a lot of its political incorrectness, comedians like Louis C.K and Larry David are two examples of comedians who tread that line very carefully with often hilarious results; but what the Farrelly Brothers dish up is not only guilty of the aforementioned sins, it is also incredibly unfunny.
Dumb and Dumber To is to be avoided at all costs, it simply isn’t worth than your time or your money.
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