Dumb & Dumberer

Following up on its extremely successful predecessor, this film goes back in time to show how Harry and Lloyd, two of the dumbest guys you’d ever want to meet, met one another back in high school. Needless to say, there’s no real plot here, but the principal of their school is trying to embezzle some money from the school board and attempts to do so by establishing a “special needs” class, for which he assigns the two boys as “leaders”. Attempts at humor…ensue.

Despite enjoying the original DUMB AND DUMBER starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels, not much about this sequel had excited me beforehand, especially since neither of the former film’s stars were returning for this go-around. As expected, the movie doesn’t really have a plotline other than some cheesy subplot about the principal going bad or something, is jampacked with generous amounts of non-laughs and ultimately relies way too much on idiocies, tomfoolery and monkey business to generate laughter, all of which fail miserably. You see, unfortunately for everyone involved, the script sucks to high heaven and despite the two leads trying their best (Eric Christian Olsen does a great Jim Carrey!), nothing really comes together other than one or two small sketch scenes, a couple of one-liners here and there, and the babes, all of whom are draped in very little clothing. The film is also packed with cameos/small parts from the likes of Luis Guzman, Cheri Oteri, an uncredited (good call!) Bob Saget, Eugene Levy and Mimi “big tits” Rogers, and even though most of them should be replacing their agents after this pic, I will say that both Cheri Oteri and Eugene Levy, did manage to respectively nail a couple of funny scenes (Oteri’s features a museum bribe, while Levy’s showcases the man’s skills at impersonating a schoolgirl on the phone). Saget was also funny in what essentially comprised of a cameo of him simply screaming the word “shit” over and over and over again. While not so funny “on paper”…he actually made it work here (at least for me).

The ex-Mrs. Tom Cruise also contributed to the proceedings with one very memorable scene of her playing tonsel-hockey with a babe co-star, but these were all very small bits in an overall embarrassing production which tries too hard, featured way too many montages with music for a film that barely lasts 80 minutes in the first place (although the one set to Air Supply’s “Making Love Out of Nothing at All” worked on some small level) and simply didn’t work (and I can appreciate “dumb” humor as much as the next guy as long as it’s, well…funny). Consider the extremely unfunny game of “tag” that is played throughout-specifically one scene in a convenient store which borders on comedic torture. You can also stick around for bloopers during the end credits, but they too, don’t really offer much either. I guess we understand why studios make sequels in general, but what I will never understand is why they would trounce their original films’ lore by creating something so inept, so unfunny and so obviously made solely for the sake of finance, instead of waiting for an actual developed, funny and somewhat sensical screenplay to come along. Then again, perhaps that doesn’t bode into “their” mathematics: low budgeted film with no-name stars + opening weekend box-office gross thanks to film’s sequel status = profit? Hollywood blows. Nothing to see here, folks…seriously…nothing to see. PS: If you’re going to subtitle your film “When Harry Met Lloyd” as an obvious homage to the great WHEN HARRY MET SALLY…how about you back that up with a cute tribute or something. Two letters describe this film as well as any: F and U.

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian