Dumb & Dumber (1994)

2 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Not Too Bright

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Why did I think this movie would be smart enough to make being dumb really funny? Almost every example of "dumbness" in this movie can be chalked up to something other than intelligence. Having bowel problems and a broken toilet makes you dumb? Playing tag in a car seems more infantile than just plain dumb. Getting rednecks to pay for your tab seems actually kind of smart. This is, of course, the third mega hit for the touched-by-the-hand-of-God Jim Carrey. Here he plays Lloyd Christmas. He and his buddy Harry (Jeff Daniels) are dumb and they're going cross-country to return a suitcase to a woman that Lloyd has fallen in love with. What they don't know ('cause they're dumb) is that the suitcase was full of ransom money and was meant to be left behind. So gangsters are on their trail. Somehow I thought the movie was going to be either wilder than this, or subtler than this. At the very least I thought it would be ruder and more politically incorrect. Gone are the days of John Belushi, where rudeness was raised to an art form. If this movie were a little cleverer, the characters would have had the entire country after them for one reason or another, and they would have done things that were just plain dumb. And these things would have been funny and not aggravating. The movie has a couple of laughs. Jeff Daniels is really good; you can tell he is turning in a performance, while Carrey is just mugging. He has a couple of lines that made me laugh. He describes an ex-girlfriend who sent him a "John Deer" letter, complaining, "about how I never paid attention to her or something... I dunno. I wasn't really listening." The movie also has some really good fart noises...