Me, Myself & Irene reunites the writing-directing brother team Bobby and Peter Farrelly with Jim Carrey, whom they first worked with on the star-making Dumb & Dumber, back in 1994. On paper, this reunion of the nice guys of gross-out humor and the latter-day Jerry Lewis (you know it's true-both Lewis and Carrey are manic, rubber-faced, outsized comic talents who will go to their graves bemoaning the fact that they were never taken seriously enough) is a splendid idea. But it's clear pretty early on in the picture that nobody involved in the proceedings was particularly interested in breaking new ground; and while Irene certainly does have its pleasures, a lot of it feels kind of threadbare. Let's put it this way: If you really, really, really, really miss Carrey's Fire Marshall Bill character from the In Living Color TV series, you'll totally love this movie. Carrey plays Charlie, a nice-guy Rhode Island state trooper who's the unwitting doormat of just about everybody he encounters. He's so deep in denial that he can't even consider the idea that he's not the biological father of his obviously black triplet sons. (He isn't, just in case you were wondering.) When he finally snaps, all his rage manifests itself in the person of Hank, a fast-talking fount of unspeakable hostility and vileness. Renée Zellweger, as the last-third-of-the-title character, winds up on the receiving end of both guys' affections, and much hilarity ensues. Since the Farrellys practically invented this kind of comedy, they are studiously aware of its rules — front-load your apologies, and then let the splatter begin.

The split-personality gimmick is just one of the many get-out-of-jail-free cards the Farrellys conspicuously cash in before presenting a fairly funny barrage of turd, feminine discharge, cripple, and albino jokes. The black triplets address everyone in uproariously dumbass rapper vernacular, but this isn't a racist gag, see, because the kids also happen to be stone geniuses. And so on. In the early "Hank" scenes, one senses in Carrey a desire to go a little further than the Farrellys might have wanted, purveying Hank's nastiness with such relish that one starts to feel the sting of some genuine edge at work. But the movie itself continues to cover its bases in by-now predictable Farrelly fashion, pushing a good-hearted, commonsensical message — namely, that in love and work a surfeit of kindness is likely to get you stepped on (gee, great insight, guys, why don't you tell me all about it), but that going all psycho isn't likely to solve one's problems either (and here they make a somewhat less convincing case). Moderation, it would seem, is the order of the day for a happy life. But not for a would-be blockbuster summer comedy, of course. One of Irene's biggest yucks involves the head of a live chicken being stuffed into the no-sunshine area of an obdurate police officer. As someone who's seen Pink Flamingos, I wasn't particularly appalled, impressed, or amused. And I might also note that the makers of Pink Flamingos at least had the courage of their own convictions: For their poultry gag they used a real chicken (Irene's is obviously, and reassuringly, animatronic), and they really killed the thing. Therein perhaps lies the key to the popularity of Farrelly fare, and of such similarly toned, putatively envelope-pushing movies as American Pie and Road Trip: Their humor is frank and earthy enough to elicit knowing moans and groans as well as laughter, but it never risks getting real enough to cause any lingering discomfort.