Dumb and Dumber To

20 years after the toilet humour-crammed classic Dumb and Dumber (honestly, 20 years!) the Farrelly brothers revisit simpletons Harry and Lloyd to see how they’ve fared these last decades. It’s a gleefully crude affair with some belly-laugh moments that do more than atone for the one-dimensional supporting characters and tenuous storylines.

Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels reprise their roles as the gormless protagonists boasting the subtlety and social grace of an avalanche. The ageing of the actors in a long-awaited sequel such as this is always a dilemma, but the conceit used here to address the passing of time is fittingly and ingeniously ridiculous. Carrey and Daniels are much the same as ever, down to the haircuts and Lloyd’s chipped tooth, despite their slightly more lined faces. There’s an endearing sweetness to Daniels’ dopy Harry, while Carrey is a full-blown walking caricature. Both do a sterling job, from which we can perhaps conclude that their characters never left them during the long gap between films.

Following the tried-and-tested format of the first film, the sequel sees the pair embroiled in a sticky situation and unwittingly becoming heroes, snatching a happy ending from the jaws of disaster through sheer serendipity and evoking a great deal of revulsion from onlookers along the way. If you live for slapstick, physical comedy, bucket loads of fart/snot/testicles jokes and general silliness, you will be well and truly sated. There are plenty of throwback references to Dumb and Dumber: Lloyd’s horny daydreaming being interrupted by an oncoming lorry, for one. Some comedy gold moments occur when the pair read the wrong address on an envelope and wind up back where they started after a travelling montage, and when they receive some whispered sex education that blows their little minds.

All supporting characters adhere strictly to overplayed tropes: the sly gold digger stepmother; the sauve, pistol-brandishing baddie; the ditzy hot chick. The film loses marks for this and for its hackneyed plot, but Carrey and Daniels deserve five stars alone, as do some of the gags, which will surely become classics.

Cringe at snot bubbles, laugh at Carrey’s ever more rubbery face and rejoice that Harry and Lloyd are back.

Laura Foulger

Dumb and Dumber To is released nationwide on 19^th December 2014.

Watch the trailer for Dumb and Dumber To here: