Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley.

It’s taken me a while to check out and review this film. This was the second birthday present that I received from best school mate Stephen this year (the first present was ‘Peter Pan Goes Wrong’). So, let’s talk about the buddy comedy film ‘Dumb and Dumber’, starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels.

If you’ve followed my blog long enough, you know that I tend to review a Jim Carrey film about every year or so. Whether it’s seeing a ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ film at the cinema or receiving a Jim Carrey film for birthdays or Christmases, I’m given an opportunity to check out the films and review them. 🙂

Watching Jim Carrey as an actor/comedian has been a fascinating experience for me over the years. I know he’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I always gain a sense of enjoyment in checking out his movies. Sometime, I must get around to doing my own ‘Jim Carrey Film Review Season’ on my blog.

Maybe I might do it for my blog’s 10th anniversary in 2025. For now though, let me share my overall thoughts on the 1994 film ‘Dumb and Dumber’. Jim Carrey was about to be well-known in the 1990s from starring in this film as well as others like ‘The Mask’ and ‘Ace Ventura’, which I have reviewed.

The film was made by the two Farrelly Brothers – one directed the film, which was Peter Farrelly, and both, including Peter and Bobby Farrelly, co-wrote the script with Bennett Yellin. I’ve not come across the Farrelly Brothers before, as I assume that they’re a unique filmmaking team in the USA. 🙂

In the film, Jim Carrey plays Lloyd Christmas. I wonder if he’s related to Inspector Christmas from ‘The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries’. 😀 Lloyd is friends with Jeff Daniels as Harry Dune. They’re both dumb but well-meaning friends, travelling in a sheepdog-made van, which is very amusing enough to love. 🙂

Lloyd and Harry set out on a cross-country trip to Aspen in Colorado where they hope to return a briefcase containing money to its owner. They thought it was abandoned by mistake, but it was actually left as a ransom. Lloyd also believes himself to be totally in love of the owner of the suitcase.

Apparently, ‘Dumb and Dumber’ spawned a franchise after the film was released in 1994. As well as this film, there’s an animated TV series, a 2003 prequel film and a 2014 sequel starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels as their characters. I didn’t realise how popular this comedy film turned out to be. 😀

What fascinates me about ‘Dumb and Dumber’ is the interaction between Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels. Whilst Jim Carrey is a comedian by trade, Jeff Daniels is more of an actor than a comedian. I know this because I’ve seen him in the live action ‘101 Dalmatians’ film and ‘Because of Winn-Dixie’.

Not that Jeff Daniels isn’t funny when playing Harry opposite Jim Carrey as Lloyd, but it’s so intriguing to see these two performers from different spectrums of the acting world. Jim Carrey can often be pretty over-the-top and he improvises a lot, whereas Jeff Daniels tends to be more serious.

Yet somehow, the two spark off each other very well when watching them in this movie. I’m not sure what Jim Carrey would be like to act with in real-life, but he must have a tonne of energy, and Jeff Daniels plays off to that well. He isn’t trying to compete with Jim when the two are playing best friends.

There are some enjoyably funny moments to take away from this film. The scene where Jim Carrey tries to stop a plane and ends up falling out of the boarding chute was hilarious. The scene where Jim Carrey happens to have extra gloves and he didn’t tell Jeff Daniels that when feeling cold is also funny. 🙂

However, as sometimes is often the case with Jim Carrey films, there are moments that did put me off. This includes the dream sequence Jim Carrey as Lloyd had when plucking out someone’s heart. And there’s the scene where Lloyd pees a lot into empty beer bottles whilst Harry is driving their van.

It was even more disgusting when a police officer told Lloyd and Harry to pull over when they were speeding, and the police officer drank from a beer bottle containing Lloyd’s pee. I know that’s supposed to be funny, but it just felt so icky. And clearly, the police officer should not drink on duty.

Before that scene though, I did like that moment where the police officer told them to pull over and Harry assumed he was talking about his cardigan. 😀 You see, it’s the small subtle comedic moments that often work in this film as opposed to the sometime over-the-top moments provided by Jim Carrey.

The rest of the cast includes Lauren Holly as Mary Swanson, whom Lloyd is infatuated with; Karen Duffy as J. P. Shay; Mike Starr as Joe Mentalino; Charles Rocket as Nicholas Andre; Teri Garr as Helen Swanson, who is Mary’s stepmother; and Victoria Rowell as Beth Jordan, an undercover FBI agent. 🙂

Just to talk about the DVD special features briefly, there are some deleted and alternative scenes to check out. I’m surprised these didn’t end up in the final cut of the film. If the filmmakers wanted to make the most of the insanity between Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels, every scene should be in the film. 🙂

So, how to sum up ‘Dumb and Dumber’? Well, it’s certainly full of Jim Carrey as well as Jeff Daniels. I don’t know if I would consider this a great Jim Carrey movie, but it’s certainly an entertaining one. You have to be so mentally geared to check out a Jim Carrey film to appreciate the comedy he does.

Just to side-track here, I’ve been thinking about having Jim Carrey play a villain in one of my ‘Doctor Who’ stories featuring the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Billy. Not necessarily the Master, but something on the lines of Soldeed from ‘The Horns of Nimon’ in a possible story called ‘Realm of the Sgrans’. 😀

I wonder if that will happen. And will I review ‘Dumb and Dumber To’ next? 😀

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim 🙂