Review - Dumb and Dumber To

Dumb and Dumber To (2014), PG-13, 109 minutes - 1994's Dumb and Dumber is, to this day, one of my favorite comedies of all-time.  Friends of mine will tell you that it is one of a handful of films that are repeatedly quoted by me on an almost daily basis.  2003's prequel Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (made by no one associated with the original) is a film the world is better off not remembering (my apologies for mentioning it here).  So when the Farrelly brothers announced that after twenty years, they would be releasing a sequel with original stars Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels, I was curious to say the least.

Dumb and Dumber To takes place twenty years after the events of the first film.  Time has passed, but Harry and Lloyd haven't changed a bit.  They embark on a quest to find Harry's up-to-know-unknown-about daughter Penny, and reunite her with her mother Fraida Felcher (Kathleen Turner), whom we've heard of in passing from the first film.  During their journey, they meet Penny's adoptive parents Dr. Pinchelow (Steve Tom) and Adele (Laurie Holden) and inadvertently uncover and thwart a Tommy Boy-like plot of fraud and greed.

As it turns out, Dumb and Dumber To falls somewhere in between the two pictures mentioned above.  It has the same sense and feel of Dumb and Dumber (not much of a surprise considering the continuity in directors and actors), but almost to the film's detriment.  It isn't different enough to feel like it was truly worth being made.  Many of the gags are rehashes of Harry and Lloyd's original shenanigans and the others just don't have the same punch.  Admittedly, this may be because of my familiarity with the first film.  Having watched it time and time again and having a pretty good sense for these characters, I may not have been able to predict what they would say or do, but I had a good idea of what direction they would go.

This isn't to say that the film doesn't have some entertaining bits.  It may be more bearable to those who have not seen the original repeatedly over the last twenty years, or for those who have never even seen it.  Carrey and Daniels actually do a great job of returning to their characters after such a long stretch.  The film is also most certainly a Farrelly brothers comedy, which may be good or a bad depending on who you ask.  I guess that when it is all said and done, Dumb and Dumber To is just too similar for my taste, and that even after twenty years it feels a bit repetitive.

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