Back in 2003, Warner had the bright idea to pretty much take the “Smallville” concept and apply it to the Lone Ranger. Rather than featuring a very young superhero, we were given a very young pulp hero. Except, they changed everything about the original hero. And tried their best to pass off a white cowboy hat and black mask as cool for modern audiences. There’s even a guitar version of the William Tell Overture in the closing credits. Guitars are cool, right? There’s a reason why Lone Ranger is a pulp character. He’s a wonderful superhero, but adjusted to contemporary style is not going to work.
I wonder if the Farrelly Brothers knew they were creating a potentially epic storyline when they invented Harry and Lloyd. There are comedy characters that are good enough for one movie, and then there are character duos like Harry and Lloyd, both of whom may be having adventures well in to their sixties. Harry and Lloyd are perpetually moronic best friends oblivious to how utterly dumb they are.
The Farrelly Brothers, after a long stretch of production issues, have seemingly taken The Three Stooges and turned it in to their own unofficial sequel to “Dumb and Dumber.” Except the Three Stooges are now the unofficial ancestors to Harry and Lloyd, three inept and woefully moronic men unaware that everything they do is beyond social norms. The world around them is vastly different to the world they inhabit. With a shockingly respectable cast of folks like Jennifer Hudson, Jane Lynch, Larry David in drag, and model Kate Upton (mainly cast for a money shot of her in a bikini), the Farrelly’s come with all guns loaded for the sake of keeping the comedy moving non-stop. As a hardcore fan of the trio, I was open to the potential that the Farrellys would do justice to the classic comedy team, and thankfully they pull it off for the most part.
I really can’t imagine a film like “The Land Before Time” being released today. As a kids film it teaches about strength, courage, and the willingness to look for hope in darkness. But as a film in general, director Don Bluth offers a story drenched in sadness, terror, and an almost endless amount of sadness. “The Land Before Time,” like much of Bluth’s work, has held up monumentally well over the year with a beautiful eye for detail, painting a massive world on the threshold of evolving in to something new, while also losing much of its own species to death and turmoil.