“Wow, so this is what rock-bottom feels like. Hm, not that bad.”

Justin’s rating: This movie’s title gives my inner English major conniptions

Justin’s review: Time matters. A sequel that comes out one or two years after the original and features the same stars and director is understandable and a call for hype. A sequel that emerges two decades later with the same stars and director is a call for concern — and perhaps an intervention.

I think all of us caught a strong whiff of desperation on the air when we heard in 2014 that there was going to be a Dumb and Dumber sequel (and, no, the weird prequel doesn’t count). For some bizarre reason, Jim Carrey actually agreed to return and star alongside Jeff Daniels, and the Farrelly brothers were coming back to direct. Man, remember when the Farrelly bros were knocking out smash comedic hits in the ’90s one after the other? Kingpin? There’s Something About Mary? And then they just kind of petered out in the 2000s, no longer the “must see” entertainers they once were.

So here I am to take a look at what it’s like when everyone tries to get the band back together for a sequel long past its expiration date. I was fully prepared to have my nostalgia ruined.

Two decades after their epic road trip, Harry (Daniels) faithfully visits a catatonic Lloyd (Carrey) every week, trying to coax him out of a deep depression. But hey, it turns out that Lloyd’s just been carrying out the most epic long-run prank and he’s fine, so the two can start hanging out together once more. It’s such a ridiculous starting premise that I had to give it grudging credit as a semi-clever way to acknowledge the passing of time.

But we’re soon reminded that this is a Farrelly brothers flick, so for every clever gag and witty quote is a scene that’s gloriously inappropriate, bizarre, or gross. I think their approach has always been to make their audience feel bad about laughing at all.

Lloyd and Harry decide to go on another epic road trip, this time to meet Harry’s long-lost daughter and hopefully snag him a much-needed kidney in the process. And while they’re doing that, they’re also going to try to annoy each other as much as possible — and pretty much everyone else they encounter. That’s pretty much it.

What it leaves us with are countless scenes of these two being moronic, obtuse, and, very often, outright mean. The one thing I used to champion about Farrelly brothers movies is that for all their crassness, they usually had sweet people at the center. That’s not the case here. It’s just two people being rude (not to mention weirdly sexist and racist).

Making a movie about two of the most idiotic people on the planet is the sort of trick you can only pull off once, at least the way Bobby and Peter Farrelly did. Instead of finding a new approach that might leverage well-meaning but blissfully ignorant characters, they tried to double-down on shock humor. The problem is that we already hit rock-bottom in that department around 2005, which is why Hollywood stopped making these kinds of flicks.

Are there parts of Dumb and Dumber To that are funny? Sure, but not nearly enough to subject anyone to go digging through this trash heap. Just go see the original instead and leave well enough alone.