As you may have already noticed, the Dumb and Dumber To trailer debuted on Fallon last night. For the last 20 minutes, I’ve just been sitting here trying to figure out exactly what’s so off-putting about it. Is it because it’s weird to see Harry and Lloyd wearing basically the same clothes and doing the same stuff they were 20 years ago like some weird time capsule where only the mannequins age? Is it because this premise is just weirder and less funny when the two guys are in their fifties? Is it that it feels slightly dated in the way that rewatching most Farrelly Brothers stuff feels dated? Is it the air of patheticness and desperation that comes with watching anyone retell an old joke expecting to get the same reaction? Or is it just that the jokes themselves aren’t that good, like the title? Or maybe it’s actually hilarious fun for the whole family and I’ve lost the capacity to enjoy things?
I’m not ready to say that the key players in this don’t still have good work left in them, but I really doubt that this is it. People love this nostalgia pandering, but mostly it just makes me feel sad and old. In the original, Jim Carrey sprayed binaca sideways and blinded a guy. In this one, Jim Carrey sprays binaca sideways solely to remind you of a 20-year-old spraying-binaca-sideways gag. That’s not a joke so much as a sad echo of a joke.
That said, I think this exchange from the YouTube comments really puts things in perspective.
LOL indeed.