Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels used to be funny. The Farrelly Brothers used to direct great movies. Dumb and Dumber used to not have a sequel. Lloyd and Harry are back for recreated escapades from the first movie without the bite and charm of the original. At least Billy in 4C got more birds to kill.
Dumb and Dumber To opens with Harry (Jeff Daniels) visiting Lloyd (Jim Carrey) in some sort of incapacitated facility. After a so-so payoff, Harry finds out that Fraida Felcher (Kathleen Turner) had his daughter in 1991, and Harry as it turns out, needs a kidney to live. Lloyd agrees to go on a trip with his best friend to find her, without telling Harry he’s infatuated with her. Along the way, Rob Riggle and Laurie Holden get involved.
Dumb and Dumber To is a victory lap film for the Farrelly Brothers. Good sequels to great films don’t repeat the first film, they either go tangential or go bigger. A great deal of the material here is repeated shot for shot from the first film, just with different props or characters: peanuts replace Big Gulps, tech conferences replace benefit dinners, and sex dreams involving a young woman replace sex dreams with a red head. This wouldn’t be terrible if the jokes had any bite whatsoever, but similar to American Reunion, what was once edgy has to push further or become neutered. Dumb and Dumber To therefore has repeated jokes with little to no context and point, submerging most of the film with them. There isn’t even a great cameo (I heard rumors of Jennifer Lawerence, but they are just rumors).
Jeff Daniels fares better than Jim Carrey in this sequel. Yes, Harry is a doofus, but his heart is in the right place. All the jokes mostly come from a place of doing the right thing (save the stupid conference). Harry wants to meet his daughter that he never met; yes, for a kidney, but he also makes it clear that he wants to right wrongs and be there for people he cares about, like Lloyd, whom he visited for years. The jokes don’t land, but you don’t feel so bad. Carrey is doing the same character with crappy material, pointing out how wildly inconsistent he is in service of jokes that don’t work. Lloyd 180s in the third act for some closure, which is kinda sweet, but dramatic stakes never drove a Dumb and Dumber film.
Dumb and Dumber will go down as one of the great comedies of all time: its still edgy (selling a dead bird to a blind kid?), low brow (spectacular poop and throw up jokes) and endlessly quotable (Big Gulps huh? Alright. Welp, see ya later!). Watching the end credits mixing pictures of the original with pictures from this sequel made me squirm. Dumb and Dumber To will be a poster child for how to NOT make Hollywood sequels, unless you just want the cash. For the millions of Dumb and Dumber fans out there: stay home and forget this near abomination. Kick its ass Sea Bass!!