Movie Review: Dumb and Dumberer When Harry Met Lloyd

Dumb and Dumberer When Harry Met Lloyd (2003) 

Directed by Troy Miller 

Written by Troy Miller 

Starring Eric Christian Olsen, Derek Richardson, Cheri Oteri, Luis Guzman, Eugene Levy

Release Date June 13th, 2003 

Published June 13th, 2003 

Last week there were debates as to whether 2 Fast 2 Furious suffered for not having star Vin Diesel and Director Rob Cohen. One could very well argue that indeed it did lack for not having them. No such debate is necessary for Dumb and Dumberer. Even the most obstinate viewer can't argue that this film suffers the loss of stars Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels and writer-directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly. But moreover, it's the audience that really suffers.

Without Carrey and Daniels the money grubbing, greedy executives at New Line reposition the story as a prequel that goes back to the characters as High School students. Eric Christian Olson is Lloyd Christmas and Derek Richardson is Harry Dunne. Friend from their first meeting, Harry and Lloyd are placed into a class for special needs children. This is no benevolent gesture to help the kids learn however. The schools principal played by Eugene Levy (slumming desperately) has setup the class to scam the government out of $100 grand that the school gets for having the class. The principal’s goal is to steal the money and run off with the school lunch lady played by Cheri Oteri.

Of course their scheme is foiled by Harry and Lloyd, although unknowingly, with the help of an investigative reporter for the school newspaper played by Rachel Nichols. Of course Dumb and Dumberer is not about having a plot but rather setting up one relentlessly stupid joke to get the next relentlessly stupid joke.

I know, I can't criticize Dumb and Dumberer for being stupid, because that is the point of the film. However I can criticize it for being tremendously unfunny. I can criticize it for lacking any redeeming value. I can criticize it for stealing 80 some-odd minutes of my life from me. What I don't want to do too much of is rip the film’s young stars. Eric Christian Olson is a game performer. The kid gives everything he's got and he does a pretty good impression of Carrey. Rachel Nichols, as the boy’s love interest, is a beautiful girl who deserves better than this.

Director Troy Miller is also not entirely to blame for this film. Though it is his name on the film, he is merely in place to transfer a knockoff script to the screen. Imagine directing a high school production of the original Dumb and Dumber and you can understand what it must have been like for Miller.

The real blame goes to New Line for allowing their greed to get the best of them. They cynically shoved this film into production with the sole purpose of making money. It is this kind of assembly line filmmaking that is destroying Hollywood. Films are not mass produced product you buy off the rack at K-Mart, but that seems to have been New Line's approach in making the dreadful Dumb and Dumberer.

Movie Review The Back Up Plan

The Back Up Plan (2010) 

Directed by Alan Poul 

Written by Kate Angelo

Starring Jennifer Lopez, Alex O'Laughlin, Eric Christian Olsen, Anthony Anderson 

Release Date April 23rd, 2010

Published April 22nd, 2010 

It was the great Roger Ebert in his review of Rob Reiner's “North” who said "I hated, hated, hated. hated, hated, hated, hated this movie." I always thought I understood Roger's pain with the offal I have sifted through at the movie theater but until I saw the insipid, insulting and just plain awful “The Back Up Plan” starring Jennifer Lopez I did not truly understand how a bad movie can get under your skin.

The story of “The Back Up Plan,” such as it is from such a mindless screenplay, follows a woman named Zoe (Jennifer Lopez) who is one of those only in the movies cretins who despite beauty and inexplicable wealth cannot manage a personal life well enough to relate to another human being. Thus why, in her late 30's, she is undergoing artificial insemination.

To give you an idea of the intellect we are dealing with; as Zoe leaves the doctor's office after her insemination she keeps her knees together as she walks. Outside in the rain Zoe dances for a moment and then hails a cab. Once inside she is joined by Stan (Alex O'Loughlin) and each accuses the other of stealing their cab. This meet cute lasts as they both exit the cab, get on the subway and walk down the street sharing dialogue so inane as to render one unconscious.

They part as frenemies but soon are bumping into each other again and again before they realize they are meant to be. But, uh-oh, Zoe's pregnant. Will Stan want to be with a pregnant woman? Or will he run for the hills? Can Zoe overcome a tacked-on subplot about abandonment issues to let Stan really be with her? If you care I must ask that you exit this review right now.

My plot description does not do justice to the mess that “The Back Up Plan” truly is. Plot after plot, character after character, is shuffled into this ludicrous story only to be discarded without so much as a courtesy flush. Eric Christian Olson for one gets short-shrift as Zoe's employee; she owns a pet store that pays a living wage, yeah. Olson's Clive declines an offer to father Zoe's baby and then fades into the background occasionally playing a jealousy subplot that makes zero sense at all.

Tom Bosley and Linda Lavin are stuck with the idiot roles of old people who say and do things that you don't expect old people to do or say. Are you laughing? They're old but they talk like they're not old, get it? Ugh. Anthony Anderson an actor who stars on a hit TV series and has headlined movies of his own is here credited as Playground dad.

Anderson plays a character so spectacularly underwritten that they couldn't bother to name him. Playground Dad offers sage council to Stan when they happen upon each other at a Playground and Stan is accused of being a child predator. Funny right? Don't even bother mentioning the movie stereotype of the wise African American guru, expert on all things, who also fills in to allow a movie to fake multiculturalism.

Stereotypes are the hiding places of scoundrel screenwriters who lack the wit to write real characters, hence Zoe's single mom support group which over flows with stereotypes of Butch Lesbians who thankfully are not billed as Butch Lesbian Single Mom 1, 2 or 3.

Alex O'Loughlin is a nice looking but spectacularly forgettable actor who has starred on more failed CBS drama series than most actors see in a lifetime. Hollywood is determined to convince audiences they like Alex O'Loughlin and The Backup Plan is merely the latest, and unlikely, last attempt to make him a star. It's difficult to gauge O'Laughlin's actual talent. Judging him based on the moronic character he is given in The Back Up Plan seems terribly unfair.

Jennifer Lopez is a very beautiful woman. She has an unbelievable smile, great pipes and a body that just doesn't quit even after she gave birth to twins in real life two years ago. What a shame that she has zero taste in film scripts. Her career since her star-making performance in Steven Soderbergh’s “Out of Sight” has been a series of one blindingly awful movie after another. “The Back Up Plan” is arguably the worst of a lot that includes dregs like “Maid in Manhattan,” “The Wedding Planner” and “Monster In Law.”

Searching for something positive to say about “The Back Up Plan” I can think of only one thing: It can't likely get any worse than this. I am convinced that I have seen the worst Hollywood has to offer in 2010 and while I may be forced to eat those words- Hollywood's ability to scrape the bottom of the barrel and then lift the barrel is legendary- but that is how strongly I feel about how brutally, violently awful The “Back Up Plan” truly is.