Dumb and Dumber (Blu-ray)

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The story follows the exploits of Harry (Jeff Daniels) and Lloyd (Jim Carrey), who work as a dog-groomer and limo driver, respectively. One particular day, a beautiful redhead named Mary (Lauren Holly) leaves a briefcase full of money in the backseat of Lloyd's limo. Being that Lloyd is completely smitten with Mary, he takes it upon himself and his fellow moronic chum to find Mary and return the case to her. Little do the ditzy duo realize that the case is full of ransom money Mary was leaving behind for a pair thugs, who work for the man who has kidnapped Mary's husband. Still, nothing can stop Harry and Lloyd from hopping in Harry's dog-costumed car and trekking cross country to Aspen to return the case.

Along the way the pair encounter a myriad of obstacles that might keep them from their goal. One of the most entertaining of these segments is their encounter with a trucker named Sea Bass (Cam Neely), who terrorizes them at a diner stop. The thugs (played by Mike Starr and Karen Duffy) also provide an amusing set of obstacles as they mistake Harry and Lloyd for a couple of genius assassins hired by Mary's family to send the kidnappers a message. Not even traveling the final leg of their journey aboard a kid-sized scooter prevents them from returning the money to Mary. After all, she is the love of Lloyd's life.

The film belongs to Carrey and Daniels the whole way. Together they present a sort of manic hilarity that, while at times feeling overwhelming, is a great comedic pairing. The Carrey we have here is the one well before he turned to drama. Here he displays a zany, physical presence that he was most known for (this was the guy who excelled at talking out of his butt). Daniels also has many moments that work as an excellent foil for Carey's antics. Daniels' Harry is much more subdued than Lloyd, and Daniels gives him an underlying sense of sincerity that would be otherwise squashed, and he holds his own against Carrey with the broad comedy.

"Dumb and Dumber: Unrated" adds a few more minutes of running time that expands on some of the preexisting scenes already in the movie. These scenes include the sequence where Harry and Lloyd are at the gas station, and Harry first flirts with the undercover agent. One of the other additions is to Harry's now infamous diarrhea scene (which makes the scene all that much more gross and offensive). None of this really adds or takes a way from the film in any real way but gives the viewer an additional laugh here and another groan there.

The Farrelly's have always been known for humor that borders on the grotesque. Plainly, the laughs are over the top, and this is what they excel at. With this in mind, the comedy is all sophomoric toilet humor, which shines in this film. "Dumb and Dumber" plants the seeds of what was to come for the brothers and their comedic stylings. Later films, like "Shallow Hal," "Stuck On You," and "There's Something About Mary" would push the limits of what they could pull off and call funny. They started their career on a high note and with the exception of "There's Something About Mary" it's disappointing that they haven't been able to retain such a high level hilarity in their subsequent movies. To say the least, "Dumb and Dumber" remains one of their best.

Erik's film rating: 7/10

Video:
Warner/New Line use a single-layer BD25 and a VC-1 video codec to good advantage in transferring the 1.85:1 ratio picture to disc. My only cavil is that the image is somewhat soft; otherwise, colors stand out brightly and vividly, black levels remain deep, and the screen is relatively clear of age or processing artifacts.

Audio:
The audio engineers provide the English soundtrack with the choices of Dolby TrueHD 5.1 or Dolby Digital 5.1, neither of which does a whole lot for the rear channels. However, the TrueHD does tend to open up the stereo spread somewhat and strengthen the dynamics and bass. The tiniest bit of musical ambience does seep into the surrounds from time to time, so thank goodness for small favors.

Extras:
Probably the main bonus on this "Unrated: More Dumber Than Evur!" edition is the additional footage not seen in theaters, about six minutes' worth, which Erik discussed earlier. Beyond that, the extras include an eighteen-minute retrospective featurette, "Still Dumb After All These Years," made in 2005. In it, the Farrelly brothers, the film's producers, Jeff Daniels, and others discuss the making of the film and how well the chemistry worked between Carrey and Daniels. Carrey is about the only one of the film's participants who goes missing from the extras.

Next, we find a pair of fake trailers for the movie, one promoting it as a romance, the other as a crime thriller; then a real trailer for the film, and a television spot. After those items we get twelve deleted or expanded scenes, including two alternate endings, that total about thirty-four minutes. They feature intermittent commentary from Daniels and other actors and filmmakers. The final major bonus item is a series of four multi-take scenes called "Dumb Moments" and include "Big Fire," "Kung Fu Chef," "Most Annoying Sound," and "The Toilet Scene," again with Daniels' comments.

The extras conclude with twenty-four scene selections; pop-up menus; and English and German spoken languages and captions for the hearing impaired.

Parting Thoughts:
Maybe I'm just imagining it, but "Dumb and Dumber" seems to have picked up a bigger audience than ever since its initial release, with its fan base increasing by the year. Critics were unkind to it in the beginning, but even they are starting to ease up. Despite the movie's relentless potty jokes and gross humor, there are some genuinely amusing moments in it and probably more good laugh lines than half a dozen other comic films. Although I still wouldn't call "Dumb and Dumber" a genre classic, it tickles the funny bone often enough to merit serious consideration among lowbrow comedies.

"You'll have to excuse my friend; he's a little slow. The turn is back that way."

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