The absence of either the Farrelly brothers or original stars Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels should be enough in itself to set alarm bells ringing. Here's a sequel or, to be precise, prequel which takes the characters from 1994's "Dumb And Dumber", but none of the laughs.
This ill-conceived comedy takes us back to 1986 and the original meeting of nano-brained dimwits Harry Dunne (Derek Richardson) and Lloyd Christmas (Eric Christian Olsen). United by gross stupidity, the daft duo are placed in their Rhode Island High School's first ever special needs class as part of an unlikely money-making scam by the conniving Principal Collins (Eugene Levy). School journo Jessica (Rachel Nichols) smells a rat (amongst other things), but it looks like her only hope of exposing the scam is the co-operation of the afore-mentioned morons.
Richardson and Olsen pull off strikingly good impressions of predecessors Daniels and Carrey but, through no real fault of their own, their movie sucks. Unable to cobble together a script consisting of the original movie's line in genuine belly-laughs, the writers rely almost relentlessly on the kind of low-value entendres that stopped being funny years ago.
There appears to be a constant effort to live up to the gross-out style laughs favoured by the Farrellys in the likes of "Dumb And Dumber", "Kingpin" and "There's Something About Mary", but at no stage does this shabby imitation come even close..