Me, Myself & Irene (2000)

(In theaters, June 2000) After Jim Carrey’s newfound acting reputation (after more nuanced turns in The Truman Show and Man On The Moon) and the Farrely Brother’s unexpected mega-hit with There’s Something About Mary, there were considerable expectations about their first reunion since Dumb & Dumber. Unfortunately, Me, Myself & Irene would have been a failure even if it hadn’t been hyped. In their rush to bring to screens a bigger, nastier, grosser comedy, The Farrelys have forgotten that There’s Something About Mary‘s biggest strength wasn’t the gross-out gags, but the solid romantic underpinning and the constant comedy (which was funny throughout, with occasional peaks of good-natured outrageousness). Conversely, Me, Myself & Irene goes for the gross-out without any reason to do so. It mixes kind of a serious plot (what with murders, criminals and amputations) with attempts at being funny and the mixture doesn’t hold. Granted, the premise is fantastic (Carrey as fighting against himself? Wasn’t that just great in Liar Liar?) and the three rude black geniuses simply steal every scene they’re in (gotta love that quantum physics discussion!), but overall, Me, Myself & Irene misfires far too often, and the result is simply… not that funny. (As an aside, your reviewer notes that with the accumulation of gross-out humor, he finds myself not repulsed nor amused, but annoyed and left curiously unaffected by the more extreme gags in this vein -see Scary Movie-. Hopefully the pendulum of moviegoer’s tastes will soon swing back.)