Okay, this looks pretty funny. Even if you’re not a Farrelly Brothers fan it’s obvious this will deliver at least some of the goods. But I still say this kind of humor works better with guys in their 20s or 30s than with guys on the downslope of middle age. Dumb and Dumber 2 will open on 11.14.14. I suspect that the general response will be (a) “this is almost as good as the original” and (b) an almost-as-good box-office response along with (c) people muttering to themselves as they shuffle out of the theatre that “okay, maybe you can go home again but older is still older.”

From a 9.25.13 post called “Long of Tooth“: “When Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels costarred in the Farrelly Brothers’ Dumb and Dumber (’94) they were roughly 32 and 39 years old, respectively. Obviously not spring chickens but relatively buoyant, fresh-faced, elastic of bod. Now they’re costarring in the Farrelly’s Dumb and Dumber 2, which I suspect will be funny and inventive (I was a fan of the Farrelly’s Three Stooges flick), but now we’re talking about a 51 year-old and a 58 year-old playing the same characters.

“Dumbasses in their 30s vs. dumbasses in their 50s are different equations. You’re supposed to mellow down and gather a little wisdom out as you get older. You can fall into dumb-shit situations when you’re youngish but guys with creases on their faces are supposed to be craftier and less susceptible.

“The youngish Abbott and Costello were funnier in their early ’40s films than in their ’50s TV series; Laurel and Hardy were also better in their 1920s two-reelers and their early to mid ’30s features than in their older-guy films of the ’40s (The Dancing Masters, Nothing but Trouble, The Bullfighters, Utopia). Little known fact: Bud Abbott, born in 1895, was around 45 when he and Costello made Buck Privates (’41), in which they played relatively spry draft-age guys.”