Directed by: Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly
Starring: Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels, Laurie Holden, Kathleen Turner, Bill Murray, Rachel Melvin
We meet up with Harry and Lloyd 20 years after the whole deal with the suitcase, as Harry comes to see his old catatonic friend to tell him he needs a new kidney. After revealing he was just pranking Harry the entire time, Lloyd brushes off Harry and his kidney. That is, until he discovers that Harry has a beautiful daughter, Penny, at which point Lloyd instantly falls in love, and convinces Harry to go find her so she can donate a kidney. From there they are given a very special box from Penny’s adoptive father, Dr. Pinchelow, to deliver to her at a conference she will be presenting at. To help them, Travis is sent along with the intent to swipe the special box and kill Harry and Lloyd so he and his secret lover, Adele, Dr. Pinchelow’s wife, can sell it for lots and lots of money.
Now, I loved growing up with the original; it is, after all, one of the funniest comedies I have ever seen. Carey and Daniels had great on screen presence individually, but when they shared the screen, it was simply magical. Too bad this time around they seem to have lost the magic that made so many fall in love with the first movie over the past two decades. This time around is a complete disaster of a sequel. The plot may seem to be different enough on the surface, but at the movie's core these two idiots are just on another road trip where Lloyd hopes to fall in love while their stupidity helps them unwittingly dodge death at every turn.
The movie is flat out lazy and excruciatingly forced. It’s one of those gag machine type movies in which it is clear that story and plot are forgotten in an effort to set up a huge line of jokes for these characters. At one point the stupidity of the jokes had me so side tracked that I had forgotten that they were there because Harry needed a new kidney. It wouldn’t have been so annoying if each gag hadn’t been so painfully obvious, or if they were actually original or funny. Many times the jokes made me think about other funnier movies where I saw the exact same gag, and thinking about how much better it was in another movie would make me chuckle. Sadly, then I would get annoyed thinking about how badly it was executed here.
On the whole the film is a complete and utter disappointment to the point that I have absolutely no interest in seeing any of these other '80s and '90s comedy franchises that they are talking about bringing back. I see the reason why they make these; the studios need to make money. And the easiest way for them to do so is to slop together garbage sequels to classics that they know the fans will come out and see in droves. If this has any bearing on the level of quality of this oncoming storm of unnecessary sequels, I’m just sick of it already.