Dumbed-down fun

Dumb and Dumber To (M)
Starring: Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels
IT’S been 20 years but Jim Carrey still looks eerily the same.
Jeff Daniels has a couple of extra chins, but he’s pretty much the same too.
And that’s very much the story of Dumb and Dumber To, a film cast in the almost spitting image of the original film, so long ago.
Basically, a road trip centred around a trip to find the long-lost daughter of one of the pair of hapless rubes, the movie consists of a string of more or less reasonably linked gags, which are more or less funny.
Kathleen Turner makes an extraordinary return from wherever she’s been for the past couple of decades as the mother of the newfound daughter and many jokes are based on her fading beauty. It’s a little sad.
There are a few laugh-out-loud moments and that’s all you can ask these days.
Dumb, yeah, but dumb fun.
Be warned, however – in parts, it verges on properly filthy, almost to the point of deserving an MA rating.
Overall, so many years on, and with a pretty lukewarm response, it’s hard to understand why they’ve effectively re-made the thing at all.
Perhaps this will spark a trend of Hollywood jumping off the sequel bandwagon… but don’t hold your breath.
– Jason Beck