Dumb and Dumber To (15A) *
Harry and Lloyd was always a pairing ripe for another trip to the cinema, but were they going to be able to recreate the magic a full two decades later? The answer is an emphatic no.
Not on the evidence of this crushing bore of a movie, which lacks the jokes and the imagination that made the original film so much fun.
It also marks out producers Peter and Bobby Farrelly (Bobby also directed) as film folk seriously out of step with movie goers.
The gross-out scenarios are still there in abundance, but the humour and set-ups that used to make them soar are seriously lacking.
Still, Jim Carrey does his best, donning that pudding-bowl haircut and dialling up his characteristic craziness to sometimes-irritating effect as Lloyd, who’s still as dumb yet cunning as ever.
Harry (Jeff Daniels) urgently needs a kidney transplant. And when the boys discover Harry may have fathered a child many years before - who may now be a suitable donor of said kidney - they go on a road trip to find the ex-girlfriend (Kathleen Turner). She’s the single mother of the charming but suspiciously dim-witted Penny (Rachel Melvin).
It’s not a complete dead loss. There a handful of decent gags among the dozens that fall flat, while Carrey and Daniels make great sparring partners who - if they had the material - nail the physical comedy.
As a matter of fact, much has been made of Carrey, 52 and Daniels, 59, playing this roles. It’s not them but the gags that feel tired and old.
Annie (G) ***
The story of Annie gets a makeover in this lively adaptation that doesn't hold a candle to the original film.
Still, strong performances and new songs along with the classics means this will pass the time nicely for families over the festive season.
Quvenzhane Wallis, fresh from a stunning performance in last year’s Beasts of the Southern Wild, again shows her acting chops as the title character.
Annie is a plucky, precocious young girl who uses her personality to survive in the volatile environment that is the foster home of Miss Hannigan (an over-the-top Cameron Diaz).
She’s tough enough to make her way on the streets of modern-day New York - but pining for the return of the parents who abandoned her outside a restaurant years earlier.
Her life changes when she crosses paths with a tough tycoon (an excellent Foxx, handling comic material really well). He has ambitions to become the City’s Mayor - and his shrewd advisers (Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale) spot the potential in him befriending this plucky kid from the wrong side of the tracks.
But who’s playing who? And will the sun finally come out for Annie? There’s nothing imaginative or new at play here but it all saunters along amusingly well, though it doesn’t hold up to comparison with the original Tony-award-winning stage show or 1982 movie.
