Review Summary: - I thought the Rocky Mountains would be a little more rockier than this...
- Yeah, that John Denver's full of shit.
If you’re like me, you’d recognize Dumb and Dumber to be one of the best movies of the 90’s, and certainly Jim Carrey’s best work. The movie’s witty humor, hilarious quotes, and the valor of our gullible protagonists make this film instantly likeable and extremely memorable. Hell, I even know every word. With my somewhat sad obsession with the movie, it was hard not to ignore the soundtrack.
Before purchasing this soundtrack I never really noticed how well it glues this film together. As blatantly dumb as a lot of the parts are, this is still a movie about friendship, relationships, and even destiny. And the parts of bonding and character development in this fine film are complemented with surprisingly good songs. How well do they tie to the film? So well in fact, it’s hard for me not to describe the songs without connecting them to their respective parts.
The opening track,
The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead, is a
Crash Test Dummies song that eventually got me hooked onto the band. This song is heard during the scene at the restaurant Dante’s Inferno while Lloyd and Harry try their hot peppers as Joe Mentaliano watches, realizing that the couple million bucks he’s after is being held by two mentally retarded guys.
Would you like to try an atomic pepper, Mr. Mentaliano? Though only a few brief seconds of the song are actually heard, the song by itself is a personal favorite. This is, in fact, a song about either Jesus Christ or the apostle Peter. Talk about seriously impressive lyrics:
Peter Pumpkinhead came to town / Spreading wisdom and cash around / Fed the starving and housed the poor / Showed the Vatican what gold's for, - later followed by -
Peter Pumpkinhead was too good / Had him nailed to a chunk of wood / He died grinning on live TV / Hanging there he looked a lot like you, and an awful lot like me!
Most of that is supposed to be taken figuratively of course. The song is catchy and memorable, yet extremely powerful. It’s probably the best song on the disc, and it’s followed by a few more awesome rock tunes. If you can recall Lloyd and Harry hitting the road on their new hog, rolling into Aspen backing up all the traffic, and even Harry taking a leak on Lloyd, then you know
Where I Find My Heaven by
Gigolo Aunts. It’s a guitar and vocal driven song, and it’s damn good. It jumps in and out of electric and acoustic and provides a quality listen. I’d even go so far as to say the movie would not be the same without it.
Insomniac and
Crash ’95 Mix are both carried by their female vocalists, and the songs are pretty poppy.
Crash starts off with picked arpeggios as Lloyd is backing out of the gas station with his new beef jerky after befriending a couple random black guys. It sets a happy mood to contradict the scene as he continues straight to Nebraska (the complete wrong direction).
I thought the Rockies would be a little more rockier than this... – Yeah, that John Denver’s full of ***.
Clearly the most sing-a-long and enjoyable song on the album,
If You Don’t Love Me (I’ll Kill Myself), has the best guitar riff and chorus of the entire album. Not to mention there’s more than enough cowbell as well. While the singer
Pete Droge is singing about the dire need for love, you guessed it, Harry’s pinning testicles to the snowman and suffocating Mary Swanson’s face in the snow. Priceless.
Despite how great a lot of the songs on this album are, there are some that are just as dumb as the movie itself.
Whiney Whiney (What Really Drives Me Crazy) sounds like it was taken from a Jamaican public television toddler show. Really. If hell was a bunch of f*cking annoying children who spent eternity kicking, screaming and harassing a helpless you, this would be the one song looped in the background.
Hurdy Gurdy Man by
Butthole Surfers is interesting at best, the vocals extremely hilarious and a tone that puts you in some psychedelic Dr. Seuss world with 1000 little Cat in the Hat clones running around. Yes, that’s the best description I could come up with. Not to mention, I have no idea where those two songs come in the movie.
The Bear Song is my favorite “awful” song on here, being a heavy metal parody of, you guessed it:
The bear went over the mountain to see what he can see, the other side of the mountain was all that he could see, etc… - yes, we all learned the ***ing song in elementary school. Except this one sounds like the bear got in a fight with Gwar. Although funny by itself, it serves almost no purpose in the movie whatsoever.
Take and
You Sexy Thing are painfully average songs. Although
Take is just filler while Lloyd plays nun-chucks on the way to the head,
You Sexy Thing actually fits the scene when our buddies step out of their new ride with boxes of new purchases pouring out of the car, handing out money to the doormen. The aforementioned songs, however, don’t hold any sentimental value on their own to their respective parts of the film. They aren’t poor enough to hold the album down, they just don’t hold it up at all.
Too Much of a Good Thing is refreshing, crisp, powerful, and appears in the movie twice I believe. It’s got the most creative riffs and solos on the album, and is the one song that really contends with
The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead for the best song on the album. The opening riff is most recognizable as our heroes haul ass down the highway from the diner, successfully getting their tab on Seabass’s bill. Just like
Where I Find My Heaven, the movie wouldn’t be the same without this song.
The great thing about this soundtrack is, with the few awful songs aside, the tracks really define their respective scenes. Unlike a lot of filler soundtracks, these songs also stand great on their own. It even got me listening to
Crash Test Dummies as well. The major downside, however, is that you won’t appreciate this soundtrack as much without loving this movie. Dumb and Dumber haters will probably want to stay away. For those who really appreciate the movie, it’s definitely worth it.
