IT HAS been almost ten years since Peter and Bobby Farrelly elbowed their way into Hollywood with Dumb & Dumber, a madcap road trip concerning dim-witted best friends Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) and Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels).

As the unwieldy title suggests, Dumb And Dumber: When Harry Met Lloyd is a prequel which steps back in time to 1986, to the duo's troubled adolescence.

On his first day at Providence High School, Harry (Derek Richardson) meets Lloyd (Eric Christian Olsen) and the pair become best friends.

They quickly come to the attention of dastardly Principal Collins (Eugene Levy), who plots to run away with his mistress (Cheri Oteri) using a $10,000 grant ear-marked for a bogus special needs class.

Harry and Lloyd become honorary members of the class and they soon draft in a motley crew of fellow misfits.

When school newspaper reporter Jessica (Rachel Nichols) learns of the Principal's plan, she uses all of her feminine wiles to coerce Harry and Lloyd into helping her expose the fraud.

Dumb And Dumberer is actually funnier than the original, more by accident than design.

Despite my best efforts and my infinite embarrassment, I Iaughed twice - once so hard I ended up shaking in my seat.

Otherwise, the film is a lacklustre affair which throws a barrage of recycled jokes and sexual innuendoes at the screen, in the hope that something might stick.

The majority of gags wheeze and splutter then fall horribly flat, drowned as most are in bodily fluids.

Richardson and Olsen, doing a passable Jim Carrey impersonation, are both sweetly appealing, exuding the right amount of youthful exuberance and naivete.

They both work so hard to make the material work, but for all their hyperactive pratfalls, the laughs fail to materialise.

Even the end of credits out-takes lack spark.

Levy and Oteri are pitiful excuses for villains and their hare-brained scheme is so laughably flawed, it's astonishing they get away with the deception for so long.

Nichols's young journalist isn't much better, labouring under the illusion that getting a scoop involves thrusting out her cleavage.

Grade B for effort but, regrettably, grade E for achievement.

Rating: 4/10