Lower your expectations

Rating: Null/10 (17 February 2000)

This film contains two of the funniest scenes I've ever seen in my life (they both involve the dog) and the ending is clever and sweet, but as for the rest. . . I don't get what all the hosannas are about. The film's actually pretty plodding and slow-moving and there are long, loooong stretches where there are no laughs at all. As for the two most infamous scenes - i.e. the bathroom scene and the bit with the hair gel - they're not really done that well: the joke is too obvious and the timing is terrible. I think, in general, the Farrelly brothers lack the kind of light touch that is necessary for comedy (yes, even gross-out comedy), and their movies (including Dumb and Dumber and Kingpin) tend to consist of long set-ups for jokes that are sometimes funny but most often not. And even when they're funny, you can't quite forget how long the set up was, and wonder why the pacing couldn't be better and more assured.
Anyway, I don't want to rip on this movie too much - it's got a good spirit, the entire cast is appealing (if rather unexceptional) and there's even a nice little message underneath it all. As light entertainment you could do a lot worse, but you may be left wondering what all the big fuss was about. Lower your expectations just a bit and you should enjoy it just fine.