Top Box Office Movies - Dumb and Dumberer

Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (2003) New Line Cinema
1 hr. 22 mins.
Starring: Eric Christian Olsen, Derek Richardson, Luis Guzman, Eugene Levy, Rachel Nichols, Cheri Oteri, Mimi Rogers, Bob Saget
Directed by: Troy Miller

Dumb and Dumberer

Rating:

E-MAIL FRANK OCHIENG

Photo: New Line Cinema

Well folks, the first part of the movie’s title says it all. So just how dumb (or desperate) are the misguided filmmakers from trying to squeeze some nostalgic profit from the Farrelly Brothers’ original brainless megahit Dumb and Dumber that helped catapult crazed clown Jim Carrey into movie superstardom? Apparently VERY dumb and desperate based on this woeful and pointless prequel that has no business existing in the first place. In director Troy Miller’s extraneously disastrous Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, there will probably never be a more staggeringly joyless comedic misfire than the spoiled likes of this witless waste.

Stultifying in its lame attempt at idiocy-driven slapstick, Miller’s disposable take on the earlier adventures of clueless Dumb duo Harry and Lloyd have no sense of clever wacky direction or inspired lunacy that helped propel the original Farrelly flick into the farcical cult favorite that it is today. The anticipation that Dumberer will probably draw its support from the riotous reputation of its celebrated predecessor is indeed wishful thinking. And perhaps Miller’s gamble may pay off in the end thanks to the lingering inspiration of the Jim Carrey-Jeff Daniels crude cut-up comedy that left practically everyone in unexplainable stitches nearly a decade ago. Nevertheless, this doesn’t take away from the fact that Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd is one of the most rancid disappointments ever to be hatched as an intentional piece of flavorless entertainment. Undoubtedly, this dispiriting dreck has all the allure of a pepperoni-induced burp.

If there’s anything that one can say about the Farrellys’ manic masterpiece Dumb and Dumber, it’s the fact that it had a goofy grotesque charm that made its brand of banality an unlikely treat to behold and squirm at in all its guilty pleasure conviction. But with Dumberer, it doesn’t bother to rise to any original subversive level besides toiling as a cheerless gagfest in the spirit of being just another colossally insipid farce looking for any attention it can muster up. Heck, the handlers behind this movie could have stole DNA from Carrey and Daniels or the Farrelly Brothers for that matter and injected all their gene pool into this dissolving dud and still Dumberer would be deficient in all its sporadic spunk.

This pathetic premise takes us back to the mid eighties as Rhode Island-based adolescents Lloyd Christmas (Eric Christian Olsen) and Harry Dunne (Derek Richardson) eventually meet up in high school and form a special bond that only two annoying boneheads can do. Both teens lead rather uneventful lives at home. Lloyd lives with his janitor father (Luis Guzman) in Providence High’s basement. Harry was home-schooled and is now experiencing the public schooling system. Together, a couple of outcasts emerge and we have the strangest teaming since…well, since the older version of Lloyd and Harry we met in the original flick. But of course the Lloyd and Harry that we were first acquainted with as older moronic men in D&D had more meaningful mischievousness than that of their younger counterparts bogged down in this current anemic adventure.

For a frivolous film that is designed to bust a gut open with its so-called outrageousness, Dumberer doesn’t quite fit the boisterous bill. One of the reasons may be in the transparent storyline that fails to do anything remotely interesting with its pinheaded protagonists. It’s bad enough that the disadvantage of having the film’s relatively unknown leads Olsen and Richardson step into the shadows of the highlighted high jinks left by Carrey and Daniels. However, to thrust upon their shoulders crushingly callow material that doesn’t generate the least amount of genuine giddiness to make this aberration work is definitely inexcusable. Talking about having a couple of strikes against you from the get go!

Miller sloppily directs this toothless romp by incorporating stale gags (such as melted chocolate being mistaken for poop) and recycled jokes that have no reinforcement behind them. Miller, who co-wrote the script with Robert Brener, arbitrarily cobbles together a string of myopic moments in an undemanding manner. To get an idea as to how lazy the half-hearted hilarity really is, we’re exposed to television’s Full House dad Bob Saget uttering the same old four-letter cuss word at random in the misguided attempt at terminal cuteness. When Saget’s foul mouth is the consistent laugh-enhancing element the moviemakers lean on for a quick scattering of chuckles then you know there’s something terribly wrong.

The doofuses take a back seat to the zaniness of their growing friendship in favor of the juicier subplot involving their crooked high school principal Mr. Collins (Eugene Levy) and main squeeze lunch lady Miss Heller (former SNL player Cheri Oteri) trying to spearhead a scam where they can get their hands on some big bucks courtesy of exploiting a funded program aimed at special needs students. With Lloyd and Harry deemed as these very same special needs students, the patchy pair will become predictably mixed up in this tangled web. Naturally Collins looks to use the foolish friends as a smoke screen to hatch his dubious plan. On the scene to uncover the duplicitous deeds of Collins and galpal Heller is persistent high school journalist Jessica (Rachel Nichols). In order to get some inside dirt on the shifty school official, pesky Jessica needs to cozy up to idiots Lloyd and Harry. It isn’t long before the boys get the wrong notion that pretty go-getter Jessica harbors romantic feelings for them.

When the genre of gross-out filmmaking is done effectively, the payoff is perversely rewarding. But Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd is living proof that rude and rousing displays aren’t always the smooth knee-slapping affair that operates as supposedly mindless merriment. In fact, Dumberer gives an ugly mark to the gross-out name. It’s a shoddy and lethargic exercise that was doomed from the word “yuck”.

Deflating and inconsequential, Dumberer is useless patchwork that’s totally a wipeout. There are plenty of inert activities that one can endure in a lifetime. And believe me, exposure to Miller’s unredeemable dull and dopey abomination shouldn’t be one of them.

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Frank Ochieng
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