"Dumb and Dumber To" Review

                                    

Dumb And Dumber To offers intermittent laughs that only hit if you're familiar with its far superior & far funnier 1994 predecessor. Nostalgia is ok for a fan like me, but disappointingly, this sequel rarely charts its own comic territory. To be fair, any sequel to Dumb and Dumber has high expectations to meet, at least in my book. Twenty years later, the final product is a major letdown considering the still-capable talents of its two stars, who now find themselves en route to El Paso, Texas. Their mission is to find Harry's estranged daughter so that she can give her dad the kidney he needs for a transplant. Misadventures ensue.

There are still plenty of poop and dick jokes to go around, but they aren't as funny as the previous film. I'm not sure what happened, considering these are essentially the same gags. Perhaps the Farrelly formula is growing stale, since the brothers haven't put out anything great since There's Something About Mary. Or it could be that Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels are getting a bit old to be chasing 22 year olds or otherwise sticking their hands in their buttcracks and using the skunky smell to get fresh, free beer. It just doesn't fly anymore. 

Performances are as good as they need to be, except poor Rachel Melvin who comes in as Penny, the daughter. This girl couldn't act her way out of a paper bag. She lays on the ditzy so thick that it's painful to watch at times.

Dumb and Dumber To is a sequel that probably didn't need to be made, except lots of fans expressed a desire for Carrey and Daniels to take up the mantle again to make up for the massive dud that was the 2003 prequel Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd. Most audiences should find a few laughs, but if it's nostalgia you want, just watch the first Dumb and Dumber on Netflix.

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