Stupid is as stupid does

It’s not a good sign that something like Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd comes to us in the middle of June. This type of ungodly film is usually reserved for late August or mid February, when moviegoers are desperate for anything to see and do.

This sort of spirit crusher has no business in the summer movie season. For that matter, it has no business on the big screen. Let’s take it one step further and say that this movie didn’t deserve exhibition of any kind. Dumb and Dumberer should have left the editing room, been shot to death in the studio lot and sent directly to Hades.

This is a prequel to the hit Farrelly brothers comedy because Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels refused to reprise their roles. It flashes back to Harry and Lloyd in their high school days, chronicling the moment the two first met. Carrey is replaced by the incompetent Eric Christian Olsen, complete with bowl haircut and mock chipped tooth. Daniels is replaced by Derek Richardson, making his big screen debut in what promises to be one of the lousiest and shortest careers to ever stink up Tinseltown.

Set in the ‘80s, we see Harry and Lloyd unknowingly foiling a conniving high school principal (Eugene Levy, what are you doing?) and acting like dicks. The film’s idea of funny is having Harry and Lloyd play tag—a lot. I mean these assholes play tag 15 times in this movie.

What’s less funny than watching two jerk-offs play tag? I’ll tell you what. It’s watching them drink ice slushies really, really fast until they get brain freeze. Now there’s something new for you, the ol’ slushie brain freeze bit. To top that off, there’s a moment where a chocolate bar melts in somebody’s pants so that it looks like poo. I know reading about it is kind of funny, but trust me, the filmed version is far less amusing.

Watching a film like this is a real soul sucker. As I punished myself with this thing, I felt as if a little movie demon had stuck a soul tap through my seat and into my heart, drained all of its positive energy, and fed it to some feisty cherubs. Perhaps the cherubs then flew my positive energy to the back of the theater and pawned it off on a couple of laughing morons causing their inexplicable guffawing to intensify. I can’t think of any other reason why those silly bastards were laughing so much.

After a minor triumph with the yet-to-be-released Run Ronnie Run (a Mr. Show movie coming straight to video), director Troy Miller proves that the laughs he got in that movie were due to the talent involved and not his own timing. Miller has directed two of the worst comedies of recent memory, this horror and the unintentionally scary Michael Keaton vehicle, Jack Frost. I didn’t think it was possible for him to out-bad Frost, but God love him, he’s accomplished that very feat.

The only true laughs in the film are provided by Bob Saget and Dana Gould in small cameos that made me wish the movie had been about them. It’s a sad day when Eugene Levy is in a comedy and garners not one chuckle. Cheri Oteri gets more laughs than the great Levy. Oh yes, it’s a sad day.

If you don’t like yourself a whole lot, and you wish to do yourself an extreme disfavor, plunk down for Dumb and Dumberer. Just make sure your dog is fed, your car payment has been sent off and your last will and testament is in order because you might not make it out alive.