Dumb and Dumber To

Prequels: “Dumb & Dumber” (1994), “Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd” (2003)

Folks must expect in advance what they are about to experience for nearly 2 hours when choosing to watch a movie entitled “Dumb and Dumber To,” considering that this is the third installment in this franchise, abet a 20 year lapse.

We find the main characters, “Lloyd Christmas” (Jim Carrey) and “Harry Dunne” (Jeff Daniels) emerging back into their world of shock comedy after Lloyd decides that he is finished bluffing Harry about his being in a vegetative state at a mental hospital for the last twenty years, upon hearing that Harry will need a kidney transplant.

In trying to locate Harry’s supposed long lost daughter, so as to harvest her kidney and save Harry’s life, the Farrelly brothers leave no stone unturned when it comes to exploiting human infirmities every step of the way. The movie progresses through it’s unfortunate journey of opportunity to “comedy-ize” some of the darker issues our society struggles with—bullying, crime, death of a loved one and sexual deviation, including bestiality—just to name a few.

It becomes more evident that the writers of the screenplay know full well that they have crossed the morality line with a feeble attempt to reel the audience back in (a type of reverse comic relief psychology, perhaps?) as seen in the so called negative reactions portrayed by Dr. Pinchelow (Steve Tom) and Mr. And Mrs. Stainer (Grant James and Taylor St. Clair). A couple of the “flashback” scenes (another Farrelly trademark) are quite disturbing, and this writer would caution all fathers with daughters beginning puberty from seeing it, and the other flashback involving Harry and his border collie brought Revelation 22:11 to mind.

The Farrelly trademark is in full swing with the use of clips of well known pop songs to lighten the mood—reminiscent of what you experience at a hockey game to “rev” the crowd up, especially when the home team is losing.

I managed to brave out the entire movie, despite my husband’s frequent requests to leave, and we left feeling “Sad and Sadder.”

Peter Farrelly has been quoted as saying, “We’re the anti-Coens. Nobody analyzes our filmmaking, and we don’t want them to.” [source: IMDb]

I beg to differ, Mr. Farrelly.

Violence: Moderate / Profanity: Heavy—G*d-d*mn (2), OMG (2), Oh G*d, Sweet J*sus, hell (4), f-word, s-words (5), numerous vulgar sexual slang words / Sex/Nudity: Heavy

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