Dumb and Dumberer When Harry Met Lloyd

This lame prequel to the Farrelly Brothers' first hit, which takes the deadbrain duo back to their first days at Providence Hill High circa 1986. Okay, Olsen, as Lloyd, looks as stupid with his gap tooth and pudding basin haircut as the young Carrey, but his sub-Jerry Lewis schtick misses the necessary mania. Ditto Richardson, as Harry, who gives good goofball, but lacks Daniels' easy mastery of intellectual absence. Worse, Miller cuts and pastes like a dangerous novice, showing the same heavy-footed direction and weakness for sentimentality as he did in the abominable Michael Keaton vehicle Jack Frost. The shamelessly cursory tale doesn't help. Nichols is the thrusting school newspaper reporter who uses the boys in her quest to uncover the principal's skulduggery. She's really there to perform pert pirouettes, throw eye-popping double-takes, and be the butt of endless 'jugs' jokes. Guzmán has a walk-on part as Lloyd's understandably distant father; his disowning glances at these poor losers is the film's sole saving grace. Younger children will laugh, but parents should note the shitload of mild bad language.