Dumb and Dumberer - The Filthy Critic

This week:
Dumb and Dumberer

Filthy says:
"Worse, worser and shiterser."

High school is a time to work all the jackassedness out of your bones. Those are four years where you can do the stupidest shit you can think of and get away with it using the excuse "They're just kids." Who among us didn't wreck a car, impregnate a girl, get impregnated, fuck a goat, accidentally light our arm casts on fire trying to impress a girl with a match trick or be part of a drunken mob convinced that one of the cheerleaders was a witch and drown her, and then spend your adult life bolting upright in bed, sweaty and shaking, from recurring dreams that they'd dredged Miller Pond and found the dessicated corpse? It's okay. You're forgiven; you didn't know any better. Blame it on hormones.

We all think our adolescences are unique, but as the years roll by we realize they weren't. Our formative years were filled with universal themes and common experiences, and thatís why they are so easy to tap into for comedy fodder. We all had failed romances, tests we flunked and a speeding ticket or accident. Who doesnít remember the first time you got drunk as a freshman and woke up in a halo of vomit on the floor between the philosophy stacks in the library? And, oddly, you liked the feeling, the way it numbed your genitals and hands and muffled your critics. So, you tried it again and again, experimenting with the balance of muffling, numbness, vomiting and hangover, all in the name of youthful indiscretion. Think of the comedy a good writer could pull out of your friendless, awkward sophomore years getting bombed on Carlo Rossi wine in your bedroom, masturbating to soap commercials. Relive that summer when a friend tried an ìinterventionî so you poured sugar in his gas tank as revenge. Or, imagine the thousands of hours wasted complaining about there being nothing to do, and how those hours probably could have been spent doing homework, studying, finding a vocation or at least not drunkenly riding the quarter-operated pig outside the K-Mart.

Itís just too bad that Dumb and Dumberer has no interest in the common follies of our teen years. If it did, maybe it wouldnít suck so much. At worst, it would portray the follies of the kids we wish we were, like Porky's. But at least you could say it had a purpose; that is, exposing boobs to boys. As it is, I can't figure out why the fuck anyone would make this movie, other than money, of course. But that would be crass.

Dumb and Dumberer is a "prequel" to the Jim Carrey flick Dumb and Dumber. Just like Candy Bottoms' quadruple-X masterpiece Always Up the Butt, Every Time, this movie's title tells you everything you need to know about what it contains; that second "er" perfectly captures the level of humor. It has none of the stars of the original, just two actors mimicking them as high-school students in a remarkably low-budget comedy. How low budget? Well, one character's chipped tooth is made to look that way with the same cheap black wax shit kids buy for Halloween. How low? The star cameos are by Bob Saget and some girl from "Newhart." That's pretty fucking low rent; lower than rat-infested warehouse space in Pierre, South Dakota.

The plot of Dumb and Dumberer is hardly worth mentioning since it wasn't worth developing. There's something about a corrupt school principal (Eugene Levy) who is caught through the retarded heros' unknowing blundering. Along the way, about a dozen subplots are blundered, misplayed or just dropped faster than a date with a marching band girl with a cold sore. There is a feeble attempt at romance and an even weaker attempt to find a part for Luis Guzman to play. I think these scenes were meant to be funny, but why Guzman? Why so many random bits that could be justified if they were part of a joke, but aren't?

Outside of the gross-out gags and the increasingly tiresome "We're fucking idiots" jokes, nobody has a thing to do. Levy plays the standard evil principal, but without any jokes. Same with Cheri Oteri as the "wacky" lunch lady. She wasn't funny on Saturday Night Live and, voila! She isn't funny here. She and Levy wander through the script, looking for the punchline that's supposed to come prepackaged with the lame stereotypes they play. They never find it, so why fucking bother? The hot girl (Rachel Nichols) is just that, a very pretty girl without a Goddamn thing to do except make me realize she's a shitty actress who would fit beautifully into Hustler's "Barely Legal."

Derek Richardson and Erik Christian Olsen could probably make millions for their impressions of Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels from the original Dumb and Dumber. I'm sure that we as a nation are fucking stupid enough to pay them that much. But, what would have been nice is if these two actors brought something, anything, to these roles other than the ability to mimic. Hell, if I wanted to see the original I would have rented it.

Give the cast and director credit for trying really hard. They just keep pouring it on and on, at antic levels, desperately trying to please the audience. I saw Dumb and Dumberer at a screening, with an audience composed of the folks who have radio stations phone numbers on their speed-dial so they can keep trying for free movie tickets, and then they actually show up. You know, unattractive people with bad hygiene who think they're friends with the deejays. It was an audience predisposed to laugh at anything. And they did, for a while. Toward the end of the movie, though, even they were worn out; plum tuckered by the endless repetition. I can't imagine how people will react if they pay for this.

It's a lot of imitation, a running shit-smearing joke, fart bubbles in a swimming pool, and even a pathetically worn-out bit where one character whispers through a window to the other what to say to a girl. Hilarity would ensue, if only someone had thought of some. The timing is bad, the jokes are older and nastier than a West Colfax whore, and there's no reason to care. That's nothing like my high school experience. Well, except for the whore. One Finger for Dumb and Dumberer.

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