Detailed Instructions: In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
Q: LOS ANGELES (AP) — Comedy is all about timing. The dimwitted Lloyd (Jim Carrey) reminds the audience of that simple fact minutes into "Dumb and Dumber To" and the sentiment echoes throughout the disappointing return. Twenty years have passed since audiences first met and improbably fell for Lloyd and Harry (Jeff Daniels), and the boys are up to their same old stunts, which is the fundamental problem: They've stayed the same. We've changed. 
  
 "Dumb and Dumber" was received favorably enough by critics when it was released in late 1994 — back when Jim Carrey seemed like he had the potential to be the next Jerry Lewis. But no one could have foreseen the effect this ridiculous tale of a couple of idiots traveling cross country to return a briefcase would have on the culture in the coming decades. 
  
 Lloyd and Harry's antics and one-off lines penetrated our collective imaginations and managed to do that thing that all comedies dream of — get better, or at least more beloved, with time. The ill-conceived sequel, however, is so uninspired that it could retroactively tarnish our affection for the original. 
  
 This next chapter technically picks up where we left off, at least in terms of Lloyd and Harry's relationship. Lloyd has been pretending to be comatose for 20 years, all for the sake of a gotcha moment, which Harry fully enjoys. 
  
 Anyway, Harry soon reveals that he's in dire need of a new kidney. The story is set in motion when he discovers he might be the father of a daughter, Penny (Rachel Melvin), and they head off to find her. Plot is almost beside the point, but it does follow the beats of the first to a tee. There are road trips set to jaunty songs, straight men to annoy and a rich woman with nefarious plans that they'll inevitably screw up. Lloyd even has a new pretty young thing to dream about in Penny. 
  
 But, what may have been subversive and irreverent in 1994, now just seems vulgar, hateful and tone-deaf — from their unabashedly misogynistic treatment of women (including Kathleen Turner as Penny's mom) to their insidious racism. In the harsh light of 2014, their juvenile buffoonery looks embarrassing and lazy. It's hard to imagine a new generation latching on to this brand of humor. 
  
 That's not to say that the movie is entirely without merit, or laughs. Co-directors Bobby and Peter Farrelly adore their characters and are trying to give fans what they want: the nostalgic joy of an unfussy reunion, devoid of modern snark or meta commentary. Stars Carrey and Daniels are clearly giving it their all, too, as energetic and vital as ever with their strikingly aged visages. Carrey's, in particular, has reached a peak of elastic malleability, giving him a grotesquely broad palette to play with. 
  
 Also, Rob Riggle's entry mid-movie adds a much-needed dynamism to the film by finally giving the guys a suitable comedian to play against. He's responsible for most of the very few laughs and a visual gag so brilliant that some might even be compelled to see it again. But ultimately, it's too little, too late. 
  
 Some things are just better left in the past. It's a shame "Dumb and Dumber" wasn't one of them. 
  
 "Dumb and Dumber To," a Universal Pictures release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for "crude and sexual humor, partial nudity, language and some drug references." Running time: 110 minutes. One and a half stars out of four. 
  
 ___ 
  
 MPAA rating definition for PG-13: Parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. ||||| Is “Dumb and Dumber” really 20 years old? On the evidence of “Dumb and Dumber To,” Harry and Lloyd — and the giddy moron humor they embody, embrace, and expel — are eternal. There’s absolutely no need for this belated sequel, other than the fact that costar Jim Carrey and writer-directors Bobby and Peter Farrelly (a.k.a. Providence’s finest) could use the career lift. Jeff Daniels, as always, seems to be doing just fine being Jeff Daniels. But everyone has piled into this dumber, sillier, more consistently funny reprise with an enthusiasm that’s infectious, and not in a low-grade medical way. 
  
 While “Dumb and Dumber To” picks up two decades after the original, nothing much has changed, literally in the case of Lloyd (Carrey), who has been in a catatonic state the entire time. He snaps out of it, gets his hair styled in the familiar bowl cut and rejoins Harry (Daniels) — who still sports his tragic blond blowout — on a road trip to find the latter’s long-lost daughter, whom a youthful one-night stand (Kathleen Turner) gave up for adoption. Harry needs a kidney, and it takes him a while to realize his own adoptive Asian parents (Michael Yama and Nancy Yee) aren’t a genetic match. 
  
 There’s a plot of sorts, involving the grown daughter — played by Rachel Melvin as a charming ding-a-ling — attending a highbrow KEN conference while her evil stepmother (Laurie Holden) schemes with the strapping handyman (Rob Riggle) to murder her way into millions. Ho-hum. The moth-eaten pleasures of “Dumb and Dumber To” have far more to do with Carrey, Daniels, and the Farrellys competing to out-stupid each other in novel and cringingly amusing ways. 
  
 Advertisement 
  
 As usual, the brothers don’t toss away a single idea, and some of the misfires are vile; there’s a fantasy-flashback joke involving the daughter’s first period that I’d pay to have removed from my memory bank. But the batting average is surprisingly high, not so much in belly laughs as in steady-state giggles prompted by expert sight gags and one-liners that display the heroes’ proud idiocy. Lloyd during a boring spell on the road: “Want to play ‘He Who Smelt It, Dealt It’? It’s complicated.” Lloyd, on being told the drinks at a shindig are gratis: “Hmm. Sounds expensive.” Penny: “I’ve always wanted to go to India and work in a Leprechaun colony.” Lloyd, after a pause: “I think you mean Ireland.” 
  
 Get The Weekender in your inbox: The Globe's top picks for what to see and do each weekend, in Boston and beyond. Sign Up Thank you for signing up! Sign up for more newsletters here 
  
 If that suggests that Carrey carries the load of the comedy, that’s only because Daniels’s Harry is so sweetly, densely reactive. True, Carrey has more to prove at this point in his career, and his high-impact energy can be grating. But then the Farrellys will park their camera as the star eats a hot dog, with mustard, in one go without hands, simply for the disgust-o enjoyment of it. You almost feel like applauding — and then taking a shower. 
  
 “Dumb and Dumber To” is shameless enough to feature a groping-granny scene and genial enough to make you forgive the visual joke that caps it; it’s a movie to make you groan and smile in equal guilty measure. The sequel finds room for return visits by Brady Bluhm as the little blind boy downstairs, now all growed up, by the Mutt Cutt car, and — if you stick around long enough — by the Farrellys’ good-luck charm, former Bruin Cam Neely. Look fast in an early scene for lonesome Bill Murray, going undercover as this movie’s very own Walter White. The principal players, including Turner, have all gotten older, but, baby, haven’t we all? To quote Lloyd, “Age is just a letter, man.” 
  
 Related coverage: 
  
 - When ‘National Gallery’ is in front of the camera 
  
 - ‘Interstellar’ is ambitious, for better and for worse 
  
 Advertisement 
  
 - More from Movies 
  
 Ty Burr can be reached at tburr@globe.com ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites. ||||| Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels and the Farrelly brothers have aged 20 years since "Dumb and Dumber," their 1994 comedy about two dimwits sailing through life on a sea of their own bodily fluids. The good and bad news about their long-awaited reunion, "Dumb and Dumber To," is that maturity hasn't caught up with any of them. 
  
 "Dumb and Dumber" was such a hit that a prequel and Hanna-Barbera cartoon series followed, though the principals weren't closely involved. Those projects tanked, proving that there was some ineffable magic in the combination of Carrey as the bowl-cut, chip-toothed Lloyd Christmas; Daniels as the frizzy-haired Harry Dunne; and writer-directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly ("There's Something About Mary"), whose sense of humor is essentially The Three Stooges with flatulence. 
  
 The original film was a series of set pieces hung on a flimsy caper-plot, a formula as old as the Marx Brothers and Crosby-Hope. In the sequel, Harry learns that he has a daughter, Penny (Rachel Melvin), who has been adopted by the eminent Dr. Pinchelow (Steve Tom). Kathleen Turner plays Penny's aging tramp of a mother, Fraida Felcher (a subplot from the first film), while the dependable Rob Riggle ("21 Jump Street") does fine work as an exasperated villain. All you really need to know, however, is that this movie includes jokes about colostomy bags, blind people and masturbation. 
  
 Like it or not, the Farrellys' most famous creations tap into something eternal, a vision of maleness so reductive that it goes beyond childish and into the infantile. (Career adolescents like Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill look like pipe-smoking professors by comparison.) Much of this film's humor hinges on our heroes' arrested sexual development: They're fixated on breasts but ignorant about actual intercourse. "Not my mom!" Lloyd hollers when it's finally explained to him. Whether you find this hilarious or slightly disturbing is purely subjective. 
  
 Carrey is as energetic and rubber-faced as ever, while Daniels has improved, vying for co-star status instead of playing the straight man. Still, Harry and Lloyd remain less than endearing. Like very young children, they're slightly mercenary and malicious. Maybe that's the secret to their success. |||||
A:
If you've been waiting two decades for Dumb and Dumber To, the sequel to 1994's cult classic Dumb and Dumber, well, let's hope you aren't as disappointed as critics. The flick starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels has just a 28% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes as of this writing. Here's what they're saying: This "disappointing return" is "so uninspired that it could retroactively tarnish our affection for the original," writes Lindsey Bahr at the AP. "The boys are up to their same old stunts, which is the fundamental problem: They've stayed the same. We've changed." She especially takes issue with the "insidious racism" and "misogynistic treatment of women." At a time "when dumb buddy comedy has become an entire strain of filmmaking" (think The Hangover, Wedding Crashers, etc.), Dumb and Dumber To "feels strangely old-fashioned," writes Betsy Sharkey at the Los Angeles Times. That might have something to do with the "expected blind jokes, fart jokes, pee jokes, and poop jokes," Sharkey says. But at least Carrey "is mind-blowing to watch" and "back at the top of his game." Rafer Guzman at Newsday says fans of the original might leave the theater satisfied. "Carrey is as energetic and rubber-faced as ever, while Daniels has improved, vying for co-star status instead of playing the straight man," he writes. But as far as their characters go, "Harry and Lloyd remain less than endearing," Guzman writes. "Maybe that's the secret to their success." Finally, Ty Burr at the Boston Globe has kind words. "Everyone has piled into this dumber, sillier, more consistently funny reprise with an enthusiasm that's infectious," he writes. In terms of the humor, "the batting average is surprisingly high," though "some of the misfires are vile." Overall, "it's a movie to make you groan and smile in equal guilty measure."