Me, Myself & Irene – Blu-ray Review

The Farrelly Brothers are best known for directing and writing a movie that really started the trend of pushing the enveloping with shock humor in mainstream films with their surprise hit There’s Something About Mary. Before that film, though, they made their debut with Dumb and Dumber starring Jim Carrey. In an attempt to recapture the success of their early films, the Farrelly Brothers worked with Jim Carrey again in Me, Myself & Irene. Jim Carrey was back to playing an outlandish, sometimes even cartoonish comedic character. Would this be another hit for the Farrellys or has the shock value aspect to their movies worn off?

In Me, Myself & Irene, Jim Carrey plays Charlie Baileygates, a cop for the Rhode Island police department. In denial about his wife’s affair, he’s a nice guy who goes around trying to do the right thing but is taken advantage of every step of the way. Instead of confronting people, he takes the abuse, balls it up, and hides it in the pit of his stomach. His psyche can only take so much, though, and soon his alter-ego Hank pops out to do everything Charlie would never do. When Charlie falls crazy in love with beautiful but wanted Irene (Renée Zellweger), he must battle Hank for her affection while on the run from both the cops and the criminals.

The premise of the film is great for a Jim Carrey film, but really the overall story is pretty weak. That’s to be expected with a Farrelly Brothers movie, though. Most of their movies have weak plots that are just there to keep things moving so they can throw out as many gross-out gags as they can along the way. The same applies here. Surprisingly enough this comedy runs a little longer and that may be due to the Farrelly Brothers focusing on the more lackluster parts of the story.

Jim Carrey is pretty much fantastic in playing two different characters in the same movie. The way he transitions from one character to the next in a split second is remarkable. Not an Oscar-worthy performance, of course, but he is not trying too hard to be funny here which helps in the end. Renée Zellweger is also good as Carrey’s love interest. She’s a good “straight man” to Carrey wackiness, and holds her own in almost every scene with him.

But perhaps the most surprising performances belong to Anthony Anderson, Mongo Brownlee, and Jerod Mixon, who play Charlie’s three grown sons. They are three very large black guys who are geniuses. This kind of clever character humor is what really makes this film funny. For the most part, the shock humor in this film is not that funny and has lost most of its shock value by this point. There are some new gags in this film, but really they don’t add much comedy.

Jim Carrey playing two outlandish characters seems like a fine idea, and he does a good job in this film, but ultimately playing one character that is so unlikable and another that is so likable leaves this film unbalanced. Ironically enough, the script is just as unbalanced. The comedy that works in this film are the less gross-out humor bits. Unfortunately, the Farrelly Brothers focus this film more on the shock humor that is just not as shocking now as it was in There’s Something About Mary. Me, Myself & Irene is a decent enough comedy for Jim Carrey and the Farrelly Brothers, but this is nowhere near the finest piece of cinema for Carrey, the Farrellys or the comedy genre in general.

The video is presented in 1080p/MPEG-2 transfer at the 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen color ratio, which is enhanced for 16:9 TVs of course. It’s a good transfer for the film and the best this film has ever looked, but really it’s not that much of an upgrade of the standard definition release of this film. Still it’s not the worst looking film you will see and there are no real problems here.

The audio included is available in either English DTS-HD Master 5.1 Surround sound, French Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround sound, or Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround sound. There are subtitles available in English, Spanish, Cantonese, and Korean as well. The music and dialogue come out loud and clear, but since this a mostly dialouge-driven comedy the audio is not put to good use here.

Audio Commentary
There is a full-length commentary with the directors, Peter and Bobby Farrelly. This is less entertaining and definitely less insightful than most commentaries. You can tell they had fun making this movie, but they spend more time pointing out friends, relatives, and extras in the film. They do get around to talking about the film, but nothing that interesting is said about it. So really a less than stellar audio commentary,

Deleted Scenes
There are ten deleted scenes here. All together these run for 17 minutes. These were all in the standard DVD release of the film and these scenes are actually worth watching. They had to cut a lot of funny bits from the movie and the film will make a little more sense after watching them. Not all of them are funny, but for the most part they are worth checking out.

There are a lot of missing extras from the standard DVD release and there are absolutely no HD extras here. So that might be the final strike against this Blu-ray release to recommend a purchase for even Farrelly Brothers fans. The technical aspects of this film are not upgraded that much to warrant an additional purchase of this film if you already own it. If you have seen it, I would only recommend a rental for fans of Jim Carrey or the Farrelly Brothers. Just don’t expect the greatest comedy ever and if you lower your expectations you won’t be disappointment.

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20th Century Fox presents Me, Myself & Irene. Written and directed by Peter and Bobby Farrelly. Starring Jim Carrey, Renee Zellweger, Michael Bowman, Chris Cooper, and Anthony Anderson. Running time: 116 minutes. Rated R. Released on DVD: February 5, 2008. Available at Amazon.com.