Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, Bobby and Peter Farrelly have imposed their far-from-charming “creativity” on us once more. As much (if not more) an assault on the senses as its predecessor, Dumb and Dumber To is 120 minutes of one’s life that he or she will never get back, no matter how much he or she may want to.
Like some sort of sick, recurring nightmare, the movie sees to the return of Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) and Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels) who—much to our disappointment—have not changed at all in the last 20 years. And yet again, their insufferable personalities are teamed with a ridiculous plotline. Lloyd awakes from a faked, 20-year-long coma to the news that Harry is in need of a kidney transplant. The pair goes in search of Harry’s long-lost daughter, Penny (Rachel Melvin), in the hopes that she will donate her kidney and save Harry’s life. After a visit to Penny’s house, however, they meet with her adoptive father (Steve Tom) and his wife (Laurie Holden), who is plotting to kill her husband, steal his inheritance, and run away with her lover (Rob Riggle). Afterward, the plot takes a turn for the worse, and Lloyd and Harry find themselves in several most unlikely situations—including attending a genius convention, surviving several dodgy firework displays, and being the targets of a murder plot, which the audience can only wish would be successful.
As can be expected—considering what came before it—the movie is crude and predictable from beginning to end. Half of the jokes are what you would expect from a neglected 4-year-old, and the other half simply leave you feeling nauseated. If the disturbing scene in an elderly woman’s nursing home does not have one reaching for his or her empty popcorn bags, it will undoubtedly cause some mental scarring. Alongside the tactless humor, the odious collection of annoying facial expressions that are exhibited throughout the film do nothing but create in the audience a real urge to knock both the protagonists’ heads together continuously. Moreover, the “your mother” jokes come thick and fast, taking what American Pie did so well and completely ruining it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMxwcRck9TI
Funnily enough, the only remotely entertaining part of this movie comes with the surprise appearance of “Mama June” in one of Lloyd’s warped dream sequences. The audience may as well have saved themselves the $7 and watched an episode of Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo at home—that would most likely provide 10 times the humor and wit in a quarter of the time.
If that was not enough, Dumb and Dumber To is incredibly degrading toward women. Constantly viewed as sexual objects, women take the brunt of the majority of the movie’s unfunny punchlines, and at one point, even the idea of a female doctor is scoffed at. While they may have mistakenly thought that such misogynistic and offensive ideas were acceptable in 1994, the Farrelly brothers have forgotten that they have absolutely no place in the 21st century.
Dumb and Dumber To displays all that is wrong with comedy today. It condones needless vulgarity, sexism, and unsophisticated thought, and in watching it, one can almost feel his or her brain cells being killed off, one by one. From beginning to end, the movie is inappropriate and distasteful and—considering it is the work of two almost-60-year-olds—altogether repulsive. We can only hope that the Farrelly brothers have outgrown this stunted adolescence and have no plans to create a “Dumb and Dumber Tree.” With two Dumb and Dumbers under our belts, I think we’ve suffered enough.
Featured Image Courtesy Of Universal Pictures
