Me, Myself And Irene

The Farrelly Brothers have a lot to live up to after the worldwide success of There's Something About Mary three years ago. So who better to reteam with than Jim Carrey, the star they helped make in 1994's Dumb And Dumber. Me, Myself & Irene, however, fails to live up to the hype and the talented film-makers appear to have lost their way.

The grossout humour that seemed so fresh and harmless in Mary is here calculating and offensive. What's more it sits uncomfortably within an indulgently overlong story which takes a good 40 minutes to get going and is often just plain boring. Carrey is as energetic as ever but even he strains to make the stupid material come alive.

Fox is selling the picture hard on Carrey and the legacy of Mary and should score some impressive upfront numbers domestically and overseas, although Carrey's star is still not as bright internationally as at home. But the word of mouth that made Mary such a long-running triumph with adults will elude this picture. Not The Cable Guy then, but certainly no Liar Liar.

Carrey is Charlie, a mild-mannered Rhode Island police officer abandoned by his wife who has raised her three black children into three overweight street kids whose every other word is motherfucker but who happen to be academic geniuses. Considered a joke by the local community, Charlie one day flips out and assumes another personality of the mean, angry Hank.

When he escorts a traffic offender Irene (Renee Zellweger) to upstate New York, they get embroiled in a police scam to frame her and go on the run. But it's not an easy ride since Charlie keeps on turning into Hank.