Getting Dumber, and Dumber…

By Jeff Kubik

For those unfamiliar with the lost art of “math,” the Gauntlet’s Entertainment section offers a quick lesson. Take a 1994 blockbuster comedy and subtract its writers/directors and the stars that made it a hit. Now add the rights to the movie’s trademarks, a couple of unknown actors and a director whose credits mainly include TV specials and you have Dumb and Dumberer–the prequel to Dumb and Dumber that asks the question: “Just how much dumber can things get?”


Harry Dunne (Eric Christian Olsen) and Lloyd Christmas (Derek Richardson) just ain’t that bright. As a result, they’re the perfect fools for a "special" class that has less to do with teaching than it does with lining the pockets of the school’s crooked principal, played by Eugene Levy (the guy who was on SCTV 30 years ago). A collection of wacky characters is assembled to form the class, an extremely hot student journalist starts to investigate and Harry and Lloyd do stoopid, stoopid things.


So now you’re thinkin’: "What’s wrong with that? A cast of misfits, a few stupid protagonists and an evil plot to be unraveled, it’s so comfortably familiar." Exactly.


There’s nothing new in Dumb and Dumberer, it’s a prequel that borrows characters and plots from the hundreds of other teen movies that came before, feeling like a half-assed effort meant to be direct-to-video.


Admittedly, director Troy Miller just don’t have much to work with here. The movie’s script feels like it was hacked together from a colllection of tv movies with a few changes to make its characters fit with the ones from the other movie that was first.


The jokes is old and, like the rest of the movin’ picture, completely devoidid of life.


So there’s probabably some kinda lesson in here somewhere, but it’s getting hardd to remmember. Something about an old movie’s license being treated bad… old jockes aren’t enuff to… can’t just resurrect, stuff to make money or… something…


Ooh, shiny!