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IT'S CHRIST-MASSSSSS!
“Comedy’s all about timing,” says Jim Carrey’s goofball Lloyd Christmas. If that’s the case, the Farrelly brothers’ sequel to their 1994 slapstick debut Dumb And Dumber looks to have miscalculated by a few years, with a reunion that might’ve felt fresher when Carrey and the Farrellys were in their pomp.
So why the delay? Turns out Lloyd has been pretending to be catatonic in a psychiatric clinic for the past two decades, playing an epic prank on his old pal Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels), who has been loyally changing his poop-filled nappies every week. Yet when Harry arrives to tell him he needs a kidney transplant, Lloyd comes to and they go in search of a donor.
Soon enough, they have a candidate: Penny (Rachel Melvin), a daughter Harry never knew about, courtesy of Kathleen Turner’s Fraida Felcher, a “titanic whore” who gave her offspring up for adoption. Cue another cross-country jaunt, as Harry and Lloyd head to El Paso (in a hearse, natch), so she can meet her “biographical father”.
The gags are pelted ferociously by the Farrellys, a relentless onslaught of crude puns and sick-trigger sight gags. Some hit. Most miss. Highlights this time around include a cat getting high on crystal meth and a game of Funnel Nuts. And when all else fails, there’s always a fart to be dropped.
There’s a plot too, involving Penny’s scheming stepmom (Laurie Holden); though like the money-filled briefcase in the original, it’s just there to allow Carrey and Daniels to gurn and goof off. Though a notch above the Farrellys’ recent misfire The Three Stooges, DADT’s playground humour feels woefully stale in the Apatow era. Lamentable and lame.
VERDICT: Disappointingly limp, with precious few belly laughs, despite a try-hard attitude.
