Dumb and Dumber

Next up in the series of films that Jim Carrey starred in and wasn’t in the sequels is “Dumb and Dumber,” released in 1994.

Felix Vasquez started his review out by saying, “I wonder if the Farrelly Brothers knew they were creating a potentially epic storyline when they invented Harry and Lloyd.” There are comedy characters that work great for one movie, but then comes along duos like Harry and Lloyd, both who will have sequels until they are in nursing homes. Harry and Lloyd are basically vacuous best friends who don’t realize just how low their IQs are.

Even though the title “Dumb and Dumber” could look like a forced claim on comedy, the Farrelly Brothers comedy ends up being one of the funniest films ever made. Jim Carrey at his best plays Lloyd while Jeff Daniels is Harry, two vacuous best friends that try to make a living every day, not know of the damage they make. Harry is a dog groomer who spends his time in a truck with his savings to make it look like a dog’s head, while Harry is a limousine driver. One day Lloyd is driving Mary, played by the hot Lauren Holly, to the airport and she leaves her briefcase behind, so he wants to return it to her. He says that he is tired with what he is doing and drives to Aspen to return the briefcase with Harry in their dog truck. What they don’t know is that they’ve trapped themselves in a kidnapping plan involving Mary, her husband (Brad Lockerman), and rich criminals (Mike Starr and Charles Rocket).

The group of criminals try to get rid of Harry and Lloyd, but strangely enough their idiocy keeps getting them out of trouble. “Dumb and Dumber” depends more on sensitivity to get its gut-hurting comedy going. Vasquez admitted, “And while it does hit the humor on the nose on occasion, even then it manages to be absolutely hysterical.” Lloyd’s shock at a thirty year old newspaper article about the landing on the moon is just downright hilarious, along with the playful date between Harry and Mary that ends with a fistfight. Vasquez admitted, “While Daniels and Carrey are prone to physical comedy and gross out gags for most of the film, they’re also given some hysterical one-liners and word play that they deliver with ace timing.”

Vasquez went on to say, “Carrey is at his best here as Lloyd, a man prone to bouts of outrageous physical feats and delusions of grandeur, as Daniels offsets Carrey’s comedy with a more downplayed idiocy. The two characters are so entrenched in their own world and faculties they’re always unaware that they’re driving the people around them nuts.” You have to laugh at the grooming montage when Lloyd pretends the barber cut his throat when shaving which causes the barber to passed out. Also when they actually make themselves to aggravating they make a skilled criminal crazy is just completely intelligent. You would never think Jeff Daniels and Jim Carrey would make a great comedy duo and “Dumb and Dumber” is easily one of the funniest (and most quotable) movies ever made you can watch it more than once. It’s another one of my favorite Jim Carrey comedies.

About a month and a half beforehand, Jim sat down with the Farrelly Brothers, went through the entire script, played around with it, and rewrote lines, which Jim said he usually does in comedies. He said that comedies are a working progress, up to the last minute. Jim credited Jeff as being an essential part of the movie and made it work because he gave it credibility. Jim said that working with the comedians, he noticed that they were trying to score rather than connect or try and listen and see to the other person. Jim said that when Jeff came in, he was amazing, alive and a real person. Dustin Hoffman called Jim Carrey after the film was released and told Jim that it was one of the most realistic friendships he had ever seen in a movie.

Jeff Daniels auditioned, then he got called back and auditioned with Jim Carrey. They did the hot tub scene, which he had, and in the first week they shot the tongue in the pole scene, the snowball in the head scene and bunch of other scenes with Jeff. By a Thursday, Jeff was caught up and was still auditioning. Later, Jeff found out that the studio already had one actor on hold, ready to come in. When he got to Friday, they told Jeff to go back to his hotel room and call time would be Sunday night. An A.D. called and said to Jeff to come in 8AM on Monday. They had looked at the “Daily’s” from the first week. Now Jeff is on set 6AM on a Monday morning. Jim walked in, first time anyone acknowledged this was going on, patted Jeff on the shoulder, and said, “They love what you’re doing, keep it going,” and kept going. Jim fought for Jeff because they wanted a comedian. Jim said he didn’t want a comedian, he wanted an actor who would make him think and react.

In 2003, an atrocious prequel called “Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry met Lloyd,” came out (the title is obviously parodying the movie title, "When Harry Met Sally"). If you think you should pop this movie in with high expectations, seeing how the original has already become a comedy classic, it’s also hard not to. “Dumb and Dumber” was Jim Carrey’s third comedy (after “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” and “The Mask”), and despite that it wasn’t as funny as those two, his charming work with Jeff Daniels definitely made it worth watching. David Nusair is right when he said, “But with Dumb and Dumberer, a prequel set during Harry and Lloyd's high school years, the filmmakers have eschewed the goofy innocence of the first film in favor of a more raunchy (and contemporary) gross-out comedy.”

Taking place in 1986, the movie is fast at introducing Lloyd (Eric Christain Olsen) – a ridiculous kid who lives in the high school with his father, a janitor named Ray (Luis Guzman). On the first day of school, Lloyd literally bumps into Harry, played by Derek Richardson, a home-schooled moron who’s happy to finally be enrolled in a public school. The two are quickly placed in a Special Education class, where they’re told to get more handicapped students. What happened is that the only reason the class has been made is so Principal Collings, played by Eugene Levy, can misuse the $100,000 grand money. With the help of a fearless school paper reporter, played by Rachel Nichols, Harry and Lloyd go to ruin Collins’ plans.

It’s completely obvious from the start that “Dumb and Dumberer” was made fast and on a low budget, as one of the first things we see is Lloyd dancing to Vanilla Ice’s Ice Ice Baby – a song that wasn’t made in 1986. However, all little nitpicks aside, the main problem in the movie is that it doesn’t have the good-natured humor. Nusair was right when he said, “The original, being a Farrelly brothers production, was rife with infantile jokes and stock stereotypes - but there was also a certain amount of sweetness mixed in with everything else.” In the end, it was the friendship between Harry and Lloyd, which was closer than any other friendship. It was always obvious that these guys really cared for one another.

We do not see that here. The two actors playing Harry and Lloyd do not have any chemistry at all, which (to be fair) probably would have been noticeable regardless who they casted. Nusair credited, “Following in the footsteps of Carrey and Daniels is no easy task, but Olsen and Richardson never take their performances beyond the level of mimicry. Olsen does a decent job at imitating Carrey's mannerisms, and though Richardson barely looks or acts like Daniels, he makes for an acceptable idiot.” The supporting cast, which even includes raunchy comedian Bog Saget (who you might remember as the father from “Full House” and in the Netflix sequel “Fuller House”) in a cameo role, doesn’t make that big of a deal – but Levy does succeed in his regular scene-stealing.

Nusair is right when he said, “The silly plot involving Levy's evil principal and lack of funny jokes turns Dumb and Dumberer into an ordeal along the lines of other lame comedies like Boat Trip and Tomcats.” Just avoid this movie and re-watch the original.

However, we did manage to get a pretty funny sequel in 2014 called, “Dumb and Dumber To.” Twenty years had passed since “Dumb and Dumber” gave Bobby and Peter Farrelly with a box-office hit. Eddie Harrison stated in his review, Since then, their brand of comedy has become something of an endangered species, with both the writer-directors and star Jim Carrey no longer guaranteed hits. This reteaming only recaptures the magic intermittently.”

Harry has spent 20 years taking care of Lloyd, who has been in a shock coma since he didn’t succeed in getting a girlfriend. When Lloyd wakes up and says that he was faking it the entire time, and two morons go on another road trip to find Harry’s daughter Penny, played by the hot Rachel Melvin, hoping to give Harry a kidney transplant. This mission takes them to a KEN conference (a spoof on TED talks), where they are mistaken for intelligent scientists and Harry is allowed to judge an invention contest.

Harrison credited, “The Farrellys' best work marries their sight-gag inventiveness with genuine humanity. Dumb and Dumber To feels like a backwards step, retaining the signature bad taste but losing the heart. There are, however, plenty of simple, effective gags – including a meth-addicted cat, a hit-man with an improbable ability to disguise himself, played by Rob Riggle, and a neat bit of business where temporary deafness leaves Harry and Lloyd oblivious to an oncoming freight-train.”

Even though “Dumb and Dumber To” has as much of hilarity as the original, the plot about the confusing daughter and difficult plots of Penny’s adoptive family, played by Steve Tom and Laurie Holden, give too much setup for not enough punch-lines. Early on, Lloyd says that “comedy is all about timing,” but we cannot ignore that this sequel was released way too late.

Like I mentioned, you should see the original and the sequel, but avoid the prequel. That will make you cringe and regret ever seeing it. The original and the sequel have plenty of laughs in them for you and you will love them. I know I laughed a lot at the sequel when I saw it in the theater. Just like with “The Expendables 3,” there was one other person in the theater watching this, and he was sitting in the front while I was in the back.

Well, stay tuned next week for not only the finale of “Jim Carrey not in Sequels Month,” but for the yearly “Thanksgiving Day Movie” review.