MovieChat Forums > Dumb and Dumber To (2014) Discussion > The film's real issue: Harry and Lloyd's...

The film's real issue: Harry and Lloyd's characters.

posted 10 years ago by tueher86
56 replies | jump to latest

In the original Dumb and Dumber:

Harry and Lloyd were equally stupid. They were not the ideal people to blend into an adult social event of any sort. Basically, they were like 7-Year olds trapped in the bodies of two adults. While they were often volatile and disruptive, Harry and Lloyd were mostly harmless and when they were actually harmful or dangerous, it was the result of unintended stupidity. They were mostly two good guys with good intentions. Lloyd has a few moments where he can be manipulative which crosses into the grey area and that is what separates him from Harry, the more gentle innocent oaf. But overall they were normal(but stupid) guys who were just trying to get through life like all of us. This allowed you to laugh at them, feel sorry for the victims, AND still root for Harry and Lloyd. The only evil act in the original was when Lloyd sold a dead bird to the blind kid.

At the end of Dumb and Dumber, I really wanted to see them win some sort of reward for going through all that. But they didn't(which also works) and you sort of feel sorry for them.

In Dumb and Dumber To:

Harry and Lloyd become outright jerks. It is no longer two 7-Year olds in the bodies of grown men, it is simply two half-retard jerks. Their antics and behavior become premeditated and mean. This takes away the audience's ability to feel for them or root for them. Lloyd is especially exaggerated in the sequel as he becomes twice as evil and twice as annoying. There doesn't seem to be a single scene in the movie where Lloyd isn't acting like a goof or a jerk. It was like watching two villains act stupid through an entire movie and then getting away clean at the end. The two twisted pranks that they play on each other in the movie were completely unrealistic, too extreme even for characters who are suppose to be stupid, and worse of all...they were not really that funny.

By the time the movie was over, AFTER they shove two women into the bushes, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth. I wanted to see them get hit by a car or something just so that there would never be a third film.

On paper, the idea of Harry traveling across country to find his long lost daughter could have worked for a Dumb and Dumber sequel. Even the crazy plot twist that the daughter was in fact Lloyd's would have made the movie that much better. But it's the small things that killed the movie. The writers, whether it was intentional or not, turned Lloyd and Harry into twisted parodies of themselves and then plopped them into scenarios that weren't all that great in supplementing their "dumb" routines.

[–] ActionJunkie007 9 years ago

Apparantly, you are "remembering" Dumb and Dumber with rosy colored glasses, because there are SO many scenes that illustrate the same antics and "jerk" mentality that is carried over in the sequel.

The biggest is the motives that drive Lloyd to "help" Mary. Yeah, he "loves" her?? HAHA hardly! All she does is give him that special feeling, you know, the one that he would do ANYTHING to bone her?? Yeah, I know, that IS a special feeling, but hey, since you can't find her, why don't you just blow her hundreds of thousands of dollars on treating yourself to the best of the best??? Your good for it right? Your word is your Bond?? (..James Bond ;) )

I have seen the new one three times now, and the original about a week ago(prior to the second viewing of Dumb and Dumber To), as well as knowing it pretty much by heart, and I can honestly say, aside from "show me your t*ts", which is probably the only line that caught me a tad by suprise, everything else was in character and fitting to both films.

Oh I travel, a sort of licenced troubleshooter.

[–] jkersey95 9 years ago

My main issue is the way Lloyd acted about Harry's kidney in the apartment, just flat out accepting Harry's demise at the funeral home with a totally flat affect and relented once he saw Penny's picture and stating that they would be less interested in meeting her if she has aids, this just left a really bad taste in my mouth and made Lloyd look like a callous putrid self-serving @sshole and was just completely out of character from the innocent Lloyd in the first one.

[–] ActionJunkie007 9 years ago

I can understand where you are coming from, but Lloyd really used Harry to get what he wanted (and harry even called him. Out for it!)in the first one, he was always more self serving, hence eating HIS snacks from Harrys dead bird money. The whole point of the kidney(and faking his 20 year mental breakdown) stemmed from his selfishness(which is what Harry was proving) and when Lloyd does give the kidney, it signifies and cements that deep down inside, Lloyd is good and their friendship means the world!

The ending with shoving the two girls, instead of one another,
puts them back on the same
playing field, and high fiving because they were back together again, moving beyond Freda, which caused the riff in their relationship to begin with. It really is a fitting end and I'm quite surprised so many didn't connect with the "complete story" that's being told. Its quite good and most importantly, quite hilarious to watch unfold! Did you not find To funny???

[–] jkersey95 9 years ago

Very good observation (y) (y) 😀

I might have been over analyzing and overlooking the sameness of characterization from the first one, but now that you have explained it like this I am seeing it more and more as the perfect sequel.

[–] ActionJunkie007 9 years ago

Why thanks!!! I think upon first viewing of To, seeing these characters again can be a bit jarring, especially twenty years later. So its understandable to overanalyze certain aspects(for me, it was their acting , or over acting at times as I saw it) but when I was given the chance to show To to my brother, I wanted to make sure I saw the first again , not to analyze and compare mind you, but to get back into the spirit of these characters and to see what drove them, made them tick, and once I did that, the second viewing took on a completely different meaning. It really is a sweet story of friendship and the end credits with me and you playing really had an emotional impact on me.

There is alot of heart in To, just like One, and if you tap into that, you'll see everyone involved really honored these characters and it really is the perfect sequel. I already wanna watch it again now lol!

[–] KongKongAGAIN 9 years ago

Completely agreed. The first film — one of my favorite comedies — works on the backbone of two dumb but endearing characters. We even believe that the mishaps that befall the villains actually are ridiculous coincidences, rather than planned efforts. In this sequel, the charm, the sweetness, and the likability of the protagonists has vanished, as have those of the entire film.

Further, the script itself is incredibly lazy, as is oddly admitted by the filmmakers during the end credits. The picture doesn't exist because it has something new or funny to share; it's just extant to remind people of what they already like, without ever bothering to give them something new to enjoy.

[–] tommy_tt 8 years ago

I agree the characters in the sequel became caricatures of themselves. Their stupidity felt genuine and authentic in the original, but in this it felt awkward and forced. It was just a terribly written and directed screenplay (why they needed 6 writers for this mess of a script is beyond me, the entire Star Wars anthology has about that many credited writers.) Carrey and Daniels easily could've pulled this off if they had some real material to work with.

[–] rportexxtra 8 years ago

@tommy_tt

can you elaborate a little more on those thoughts?

[–] tommy_tt 8 years ago

@rportexxtra

Think of a caricature drawing of a person. In caricature drawings, you exaggerate a person's physical features to the point where they look like a cartoon. The more you exaggerate those features, the less real the drawing looks. That's what happened with Lloyd and Harry, metaphorically. Their qualities were exaggerated to the point where they felt like "cartoons" of the original characters. And I don't blame Jim Carrey or Jeff Daniels for that, because they didn't write the script or direct the scenes. They were just playing the parts they were given.

In the original there was a lot of improv. Like the scene where Lloyd walks by the old news article that says mankind has finally walked on the moon, and he's just blown away acting like it had just happened. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f_DPrSEOEo That bit wasn't in the script and yet it was pure comedic gold. Jim Carrey is like Robin Williams was, one of those rare comedic geniuses that can give you material more hilarious than you could ever script, as long as you give them some creative freedom in their roles. But I didn't feel that at all in the sequel, the humor just felt so scripted and forced. It was downright cringe-worthy at times.

[–] rportexxtra 8 years ago

I personally thought perhaps the biggest problem was it was edited very badly and presented like a splattered compilation of dailies recklessly tossed together but with the right precision and care in cutting the scenes together meticulously structuring the dialogue including only the bare essentials to best represent the characters and context of the scene it can be at least more faithful to the original. In any case it's still probably not as good but just might be able to be passed off as a (semi?) faithful sequel. I took the liberty of doing the job myself with my own fan edit. Might I interest you in it?