20 years ago I went to my home town theater with one of my friends and we were two of maybe four people in the entire theater watching the film DUMB AND DUMBER. Sadly I cannot remember which friend was with me but I do remember falling in love with the movie. I was eleven years old and introduced to a whole new world of humor. I have since watched this film maybe 50 times and know almost every line. So here we are 20 years later. If I hadn't seen the original film in a theater I might not have gone to see this one. Needless to say I wanted to relive that moment from my childhood.
SPOILER ALERT
DUMB AND DUMBER TO takes place exactly 20 years later after the events of the first film. Lloyd has been hospitalized this whole time and Harry has been coming to visit him every day. Lloyd miraculously comes out of his catatonia the moment Harry mentions he won't be coming back, claiming it was one big joke. The two friends reunite as if nothing had happened these last 20 years. But when Harry reveals that his kidneys are failing Lloyd's world changes once again.
After the discovery of a post card from 1991 Harry finds out he has a daughter. The two friends start a quest to find Harry's daughter and hopefully persuade her to give her long lost father her kidney.We finally meet the infamous Fraida Felcher (played by the wonderful Kathleen Turner), the mother of Harry's daughter, through which we discover gave the child up for adoption. All Fraida has is a current picture and an address. One look at the picture and Lloyd falls in love with Harry's, now 23 year old and gorgeous, daughter Penny. Motivated by a new reason the quest continues.
The film from here goes through many twists and turns involving murderous con-artists, uber-camoflauge spies, a trip to a world science convention, and much more. We revisit some old jokes from the first film as well as experiencing new jokes. Fraida returns trying to find her daughter too. The perspective shifts once Lloyd discovers that Penny isn't Harry's daughter but his daughter.
I don't know if it's because they're twenty years older or if the actors were trying too hard or if the writing was off but the film failed to recapture that simple and innocent feeling that the original had. As a result the characters weren't as endearing. Everybody involved in the making of this film tried to rekindle the thoughts and feelings of the original, we saw Harry's sheep-dog van again, we heard the second most annoying sound in the world, and if you stayed to the end of the credits you got a really special treat from the past (my favorite throwback in the film).
And some of the new stuff they introduced was pretty good too. Expanding on Fraida Felcher and finally meeting her was great. The con artists plot seemed like a blatant repeat of the kidnapping plot from the first film however. But one of the best aspects of the film was Harry's daughter played wonderfully by actress Rachel Melvin. Not only is she nice to look at but she is hilarious too. You believe she could be the spawn of Harry or Lloyd because she dumb to (get it?). A stand out scene is when Lloyd and Penny are having dinner together and Lloyd realizes that she's his daughter and the scene flashes to an image of Penny appearing identical to Lloyd.
All in all I enjoyed the film but I felt it was about half as funny as the original, which is actually pretty dang funny considering how spectacular the original film was. I laughed out loud many times and enjoyed the experience. The Farrelly Brothers promised another Dumb and Dumber sequel in 2034 (I assume as a joke) and it would be awesome to get that film in twenty years too.
Overall Ranking: 5 out of 10
Nude-O-Meet: 1 out of 10
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