In one scene our alternative heroes Harry and Lloyd cross the road at the junction of Stan Street and Oliver Street.

It's a knowing nod to silent era comedy legends Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy ...but quite why they should want to namecheck two cinema greats is a mystery.

This thoroughly ordinary yarn explaining how Harry and Lloyd met up shouldn't really be mentioned in the same breath as Stan and Ollie. (They even take their first names from another comedy star Harry Lloyd).

Dumb and Dumber was the Farrelly Brothers' breakthrough movie and launched the meteoric ascent of Jim Carrey.

All those big names are missing from this account of the boys' college days...and with them appears to have gone any spark of originality.

Carrey's character Lloyd is played by relative newcomer Olsen, who had minor roles in Pearl Harbor and The Hot Chick.

Harry's shoes are filled by Richardson, a young actor cast after thousands of auditions in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago.

There's no denying both actors have nailed the parts - Olsen is a deadringer for a younger Carrey with chipped tooth and pudding bowl haircut (he'd be a good bet on Stars in their Eyes).

But you can't help thinking they are part of a project that is the fruit of accountants' forecasts rather than cinematic creativity.

After first meeting each other following a collision in the street, the pair find themselves at the college together - two greenhorns all at sea.

They unwittingly (everything they do is unwitting) fall into the web of corrupt Principal Collins (Levy) and his girlfriend, lunch lady Cheri Oteri.

They want them to be the first students in a phoney "special needs" class in order to trouser $100,000 in grants ...and retire to Hawaii.

There's the usual mix of surreal observations from the duo and the sort of scene-stealing show we've come to expect from Levy.

However, as somebody observes: "There is nothing more American than doing nothing and getting away with it."

Tim Evans