Just last night I watched bits of Dumb and Dumber to refresh my memory on the two goofballs, Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne (Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels) and their cross country trip in their dog van. The 1994 film by the Farrelly Brothers had a manic energy and an endearing goofiness. The Farrelly Brothers went on to make the cult classic There’s Something About Mary and Shallow Hal among others. So it was with a degree of trepidation that I watched the sequel. The film is laugh out loud in parts, but there is a feeling of same old stuff and the movie makes it by the skin of its teeth, riding on a wave of nostalgia.
Twenty years on, Harry and Lloyd are still on a road trip this time to find Harry’s long-lost daughter so that they can get her to donate her kidney to Harry. Instead of a briefcase, there is a multi-billion dollar invention, Dumbelina, wicked wife, sundry scientists and silly henchmen.
Carrey with broken tooth and Daniels riff off each other to good effect. Kathleen Turner is stately fun as Fraida Felcher. The bodily functions jokes fly thick and fast as do the political incorrect ones. What seemed daring and out there 20 years ago seems very mainstream now. It may not just be that the jokes are tired, it is that the world and we have grown older. Who would have thought the Farrelly Brothers would remind us of Andrew Marvel and time’s winged chariot hurrying near. Sigh