Dumb and Dumber To

By: Robert Murphy 

You know that moment where you sit down to watch a sequel to a movie and question whether or not it really needed to be made, well that is the feeling you feel constantly while watching the entirety of Dumb and Dumber To. It has been a decade since the first Dumb and Dumber graced our brains with a massive IQ drop and Harry (Jeff Daniels) and Lloyd (Jim Carrey) are off on another state to state adventure. This time around, they're off to find Harry's estranged daughter, Penny (Rachel Melvin), so she can give him a kidney that he desperately needs and Lloyd comes along to try and sweep her off her feet, presumably right after the surgery. The two once again prove to grace viewers with a whole manner of ill gotten adventures just like before and that's what you'll be saying the entire time as all the gags that were charming the first time around come back in their entirety.

I give any star to a movie sequel great credit in coming back to a film that may not have been their most shining moment but it was definitely a gem hidden away in their career that they look on fondly. This is perhaps the biggest reason I watched Dumb and Dumber To and that was for the simple fact that Jeff Daniels and Jim Carrey once again returned to be a part of it and hopefully they can bring some laughs out of the beaten horse but not even they could save the film. All of the "funnier" moments for the movie were conveniently placed for the ads leading up to the titles release and the rest just doesn't give you much to look forward to. Not only that but much of the humor that comes from the story revolves around many mean spirited humor and often cruel awkward moments that were pain staking to sit through. Sitting there while Harry and Lloyd bother the parents of an old friend who past away years ago at 3 AM comes immediately to mind as I struggled to try and see how any of it was suppose to be funny at all. The jokes were all poor or disgusting in nature and don't make you laugh but make you sigh and feel generally disappointed by the choice in writing. 

As for the rest of the screen time, the story is pretty much a carbon copy of what it was ten years ago. Harry and Lloyd are traveling together making there fart jokes and completely clueless as to what is going on around them, even the threat of looming death that surrounds them. After they meet the adoptive parents of Penny, they're given a package to deliver to her and this leads to the hot young wife, Adele (Laurie Holden) start plotting to kill them for whatever is inside. Later it turns out that Lloyd already looked inside at the end of film in perhaps one of the weakest twists for the entire thing. The one shining glimmer of a good story comes out at the very end of the movie that I will not spoil, needless to say it is the sweetest part of the whole story and that's why I liked it so much. It's also perhaps the one thing that doesn't feel recycled about Dumb and Dumber To as a whole. 

Needless to say, the charm is not at all back for this sequel, Carrey and Daniels do try their best to give fart jokes and stupidity another go and they might have pulled it off if the story was handled by the original writings of the Farelly Brothers. The jokes are reused and tired and the ones that weren't were just rude and disgusting garbage that tries to get stuffed down your throat. The way the overall movie ends may leave you with a smile as it did for me but as for the rest you're better off watching the commercials and thinking fond memories of the original. 

Good:

- The ending to the actual story was sweet and the only redeemable moment

Bad:

- Recycled humor and jokes are a plenty

- What aspects weren't reused were poor and overall upsetting

- The format to the story is a carbon copy of the original

Scully Rating: 2.0 out of 10