Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (2003)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation Scene Selection Anim & Audio Dolby Digital Trailer-Rain Alternative Version Audio Commentary-Director And Actors Audio Commentary-Film Critics Audio Commentary-The Ciccone Family Featurette-Casting The Perfect Dummies Featurette-Making Of Deleted Scenes-Lost & Found Department Theatrical Trailer Teaser Trailer Easter Egg
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	81:27 (Case: 86)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Troy Miller
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Eric Christian Olsen Derek Richardson Rachel Nichols Cheri Oteri Luis Guzmán Elden Henson William Lee Scott Mimi Rogers Eugene Levy Lin Shaye Shia LaBeouf Josh Braaten Teal Redmann
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$39.95	Music	Eban Schletter

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired English Audio Commentary Greek	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Dumb And Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd is a belated prequel to the 1994 surprise hit Dumb and Dumber directed by the Farrelly brothers (There's Something About Mary and Me, Myself & Irene). The first film was a hit and miss affair, but with its outrageous gross-out humour tempered by a fairly sweet plot, and bolstered by quite strong performances by Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels in the leading roles. Fortunately for all concerned, the hits were slightly more frequent than the misses, and the film ended up making much more than its budget at the box office. Dumb and Dumber was an unexpected treat the first time I watched it. The gross out comedy was carried fitfully through the movie, with one or two standout set-pieces. (I still laugh at the ski-lift mishap and the totally juvenile laxative scene).

    So, after almost a decade, a prequel is released on an unsuspecting public. Does it manage to recapture the idiotic, but good-natured humour of the first film? Is the script full of classic gross-out moments? Are the performances as good as the original? Well, the answers would have to be No, No and almost. The idea of making a prequel to this film is not a bad one - it could have been made to work, with a little more effort. After all, the characters of Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne were so maladjusted and so socially inept that discovering their childhood origins should have allowed for some twisted belly-laughs. Unfortunately, a weak occasional smile is pretty well all that Dumb and Dumberer is likely to raise.

    This film takes place several years before the events witnessed in Dumb and Dumber. We learn that Lloyd Christmas (originally Carrey and now Eric Christian Olsen) is the son of a school janitor, and lives beneath his own High School. His soon to become best friend is Harry Dunne (originally Daniels and now Derek Richardson), a strange young man who has been home schooled all of his life, and is about to make the big step to High School. The two heroes bump into each other - quite literally (cue the trademark Lloyd broken front tooth) - as they are running blindly towards school.

    The misfits soon become inseparable, particularly when Principal Collins (a wasted Eugene Levy) discovers yet another way to rort the school funds - he needs to create a "Special Needs" class in the school which will net him $100,000 in additional funding. Who better to be his star pupils that the maladroit Harry and Lloyd? Through a series of misunderstandings they manage to recruit a number of perfectly able-bodied, but shiftless fellow students to join the class. What follows is the weakest of farces in which Harry and Lloyd compete for the affections of the attractive Jessica (Rachel Nichols) whilst incompetently helping the budding journalist uncover the dirty deeds of Collins and his dinner-lady girlfriend Ms. Heller (Cheri Oteri).

    The film does manage the occasional self-referential laugh, but far too infrequently. Olsen does a marvellous job in mimicking the performance of Carrey, and you could almost be forgiven for mistaking them as one and the same actor at times. Richardson is also fairly reasonable in the role of the dim-witted Harry, but the performances of the two leads are nowhere near enough to keep you entertained for the duration. The plot is flimsy and the script is weak. This is a funny ten-minute homage stretched way, way beyond its breaking point. You cannot help feeling that a good basic idea was squandered on a weak script and by-the-numbers plot, in a cynical money-making effort. If you want a laugh, why not rent the original? I cannot recommend this for purchase by anyone at all I'm afraid.

Video

    The video quality of this transfer is very good, with no really major flaws of note.

    The video is presented 16x9 enhanced at 1.85:1 which is the original theatrical aspect ratio. The transfer is fairly sharp throughout, albeit with some minor grain cropping up fairly frequently to soften things a little.

    There are few real tests for the black levels and shadow detail, but where needed, the transfer acquits itself well in both areas. Colours are solid, quite vibrant and cleanly rendered with natural skin tones in evidence throughout. There is no colour bleeding.

    I noticed no major MPEG compression artefacts in the transfer. Edge enhancement was never significant enough to become readily apparent - even on a large projected image. Aliasing was not an issue on my system.

    Film artefacts are rare and this is generally a very clean transfer.

    The English for the Hard of Hearing subtitles are serviceable and follow the dialogue pretty closely at all times. They include lyrics for some of the pop songs. There are occasional spelling errors ("looser" rather than "loser" in the audio commentary track for instance) but this is really a nit-pick for what is a commendable level of subtitling.

    This disc is single sided and dual layered (DVD 9) with the layer change unnoticed.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The overall audio transfer is fairly good and appropriate for a comedy.

    The main English audio track is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 encoded at 448 kbps. It has no major flaws in the way of hiss, dropouts or pops. I sampled the alternative Dolby Digital 2.0 track, encoded at 192 kbps, and it is adequate although not as dynamic as the surround mix. There were no issues with audio sync.

    The original music is provided by Eban Schletter who seems to have done most of his work in the field of television. It is thoroughly unremarkable, and the snatches of contemporary pop music songs leave much more of an impression. They are generally evocative of the period, with Ice Ice Baby, The A-Team Theme and Whip-It making an appearance amongst several others. There is the odd incongruous choice of incidental music too, given that the film is set in 1986. I'm not a great music historian, but I'm pretty certain that The Anthem by Good Charlotte was a 2003 release.

    The front speakers transmit the dialogue cleanly enough and also provide a reasonable spread of noise across the front soundstage. Dialogue is firmly gripped by the centre channel, while the other front speakers give a fair degree of separation.

    The surround speakers are generally subtly used to provide minor ambience and occasionally more aggressive musical support. This frontal-sounding audio is appropriate for a comedy film, and high level surround activity is not missed. The subwoofer sees some use throughout, albeit in a fairly low-key way. It's a serviceable soundtrack overall, but hardly one to impress your friends with.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    Perplexingly for such a mediocre film, there is an almost never-ending stream of extras on offer.

Menu

    The main menu is an animated number accompanied by a burst of the soundtrack. It allows the options of playing the movie, audio and subtitle options (including some extras covered in the Easter Egg section below), choosing one of a relatively light fifteen chapter stops and an "All Access Pass" to the following extras. There is also a large red button marked "do not press" which plays one of two juvenile animations.

Easter Eggs

    Glaringly obvious, these are shown as intact or broken eggs on the various menu screens. On the main menu, clicking on the broken egg leads to an egg box containing no less than five of the blighters. There are also several others scattered across the other menus (I found three more). They all tend to be 16x9 enhanced video clips not in the film, running for between fifteen and forty seconds each, with Dolby Digital 2.0 audio encoded at 192 kbps.

    In addition, the sound and screen options selection provides for these features:

• Extended Movie Mode (1:04) - the opening of the film is played in ultra slow motion. Laugh? I nearly passed the cigs round!
• Jiffy Mode (1:18) - the entire movie is played in ultra fast-forward mode with a musical track, quite droll actually
• Pillow Mode (0:40) - the opening of the film is played on its side - as if you were watching with your head on a pillow
• Scottish (1:24) - the opening of the film is played with an utterly unfunny "Scottish" dub that would put Groundskeeper Willie to shame

Commentary Tracks

    How many commentary tracks does one cruddy movie need? Well, seemingly...three, all with subtitles available:

• Troy Miller (director), Derek Richardson and Eric Christian Olsen provide a generally uninteresting commentary, which tends towards soft and, well, boring
• Film critics Samuel Shavers and Thompson Jennings in a spoof commentary running for only 2:55
• The Ciccone Family in a spoof Italian family commentary as they prepare dinner running for only 2:59

Casting The Perfect Dummies

    A little better than the typical EPK piece of fluff, the main actors explain why they chose to put their careers down the toilet and appear in this nonsense. Lots of audition tapes are seen, and the crew explain why they chose who they did - yawn! Running for 25:15, it is presented 16x9 enhanced at approximately 1.78:1 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 192 kbps.

Dumb And Dangerous: The Making of Dumb And Dumberer

    This "making of" featurette runs for 17:10, and is presented 16x9 enhanced at approximately 1.78:1 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 192 kbps. It is a behind the scenes piece which is worth a single watch for fans, but for most people will be of little to no interest.

Lost and Found Department

    A large selection of out-takes and extensions, divided into two sections imaginatively entitled Dumb and Dumberer, they are presented 16x9 enhanced at 1.78:1 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 192 kbps, and with optional subtitles and director/editor commentaries:

    Dumb:

• Alternate Main Titles (6:25)
• Ninja & Chicken S*** (2:03)
• Alternate Bus Chase (3:06)
• Ray's Song (2:57)
• Lloyd's Fantasy - Long Version (1:30)
• Alternate Breakup Montage (2:10)
• Harry and Lloyd Open The Chest - Alternate Version (1:33)
• Goodbye George Washington (1:08)
• Gorilla at Jessica's (1:04)

    Dumberer:

• A fairly amusing sequence of bloopers narrated by the cast and running sequentially for 7:39

Theatrical Trailer

    With a quite novel Lord Of The Rings spoof intro, this is presented at 1.85:1 with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 384 kbps. This runs for 1:57, and makes the film look much better than it really is.

Teaser Trailer

    Presented at 1.85:1 with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 384 kbps, this runs for 1:10.

    The Region 1 release of this film appears to be substantially the same as our own. It does apparently include some additional DVD ROM features however.

• Script Viewer
• Interactive games

     The trade-off would seem to be the PAL transfer available in Region 4 versus the DVD ROM features on the Region 1 release. I would urge you to rent before you buy either, but Region 1 possibly wins by a whisker.

    Dumb and Dumberer is a poor cash-in attempt on the earlier film. It may provide one or two laughs, but overall is well worth avoiding unless you are a dedicated fan of one of the stars or crew.

    The video quality is very good.

    The audio transfer is pretty good, and appropriate for a comedy.

    The extras are extensive, verging on the incredible for a single disc.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall