Much funnier that you would expect

Rating: 8/10 (7 January 2012)

I remember when this movie was first released: there was a lot of hype surrounding it and it was the movie that everybody went and saw. It still is a very popular movie (at the time of writing, being the mid to late nineties) and I do think that it is quite funny. Dumb and Dumber seems to be a movie that you either love or you hate. I enjoy it and at some points in this movie I actually find it quite funny.
A young lady named Mary Swanson is picked up by Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carey) and taken to the airport. Lloyd falls in love with her and treats her as a long lost friend. Mary has other things on her mind, such as her kidnapped husband and the ransom. She leaves a brief case of money in the airport but Lloyd sees it, thinks that she has left it behind, and rushes up and takes it before the crooks can lay their hands on it.
The crooks then try to get the money back while Christmas and his friend decide to travel across America to Aspen to find Mary Swanson and return the money to her. Thus Dumb and Dumber becomes a road movie, though quite a funny one. They set the jokes up quite well and then execute them even better. The comedy is a mix of slapstick and toilet humour, with some dumb jokes thrown it.
The main characters are simply idiots. They do not think about what they do, but more so they say things that we consider to be really stupid. Then there is the comedy of ignorance. The two idiots don't realise that they have stumbled into a kidnapping case and the crims think that the idiots are FBI agents who are constantly one step ahead.
I consider that Dumb and Dumber is a very clever movie that is thematically dry. It is a plot driven movie and was made for laughs and money. I guess that it emphasises the stupid side of us and in a way we are laughing at ourselves. It is a movie that takes our stupid side and over inflates it. Things such as the dead parakeet being sold to the blind boy. It is not something that we would expect to happen, but it shows up the side of us that wants to rip off those who are less fortunate. There is the scene where Lloyd meets Mary and instantly falls in love with her. Though this is blown out of proportion, it reveals to us the way we will fall in love with people that we do not know.
It also reveals the side of us that makes unsupported assumptions. Such as the crooks thinking that Carey and Daniels are very sophisticated and intelligent private detectives or FBI agents, when we know that they are really just a couple of twits. This shows us up as we tend to jump to illogical conclusions and they do tend to be the opposite.
I really enjoy this movie. It is funny, witty, and quite smooth. It is one that you either love or hate. I don't love it, but do enjoy watching it every so often.