Movie Review: Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser (2015)

Joe Dirt is one of those movies that I can watch over and over. When it was in heavy rotation on Comedy Central, I had to stop and watch no matter where I came into it. When I heard the news of a sequel, I got excited. I did. Judge my taste if you want, but the world needs silly comedies. The interesting thing about this movie is that it was released exclusively on Crackle. It's not their first original release. They have a few movies and TV shows, and oddly enough, this might be their biggest yet.

We find our lovable dipshit of a hero on a bus bench attempting to tell his story to a stranger sitting near him. Yes, this is very Forrest Gump, which the stranger points out before calling Joe a bitch waffle. Another stranger comes along and decides to hear the story. The weirdest part is that radio host Zander Kelly (Dennis Miller) is telling the story of Joe telling his story to two yahoos at an auto shop. This isn't even the weirdest this movie gets.



We left Joe and Brandy (Brittany Daniel) madly in love at the end of the first movie. As Joe tells his story, we find that the two are happily married with three beautiful kids. Somewhere in time, Joe ditched his dread-locked wig for his original mullet, but that never comes up. A tornado hits the trailer park they live in, and in an act of selfless fatherhood, Joe is caught up in the tornado. When he wakes, he's trapped in the 1960s, and he needs to find his way back to Brandy.

Joe has run-ins with a few different foes throughout the movie. Patrick Warburton is the leader of a mysterious biker gang from the sixties. Joe runs into Clem (Christopher Walken) in the heat of his gangster days, and yes, he does rehash my favorite line from the first movie. Kid Rock didn't return for the sequel. Instead, Mark McGrath has his eye on Brandy, and he does what he can to split the happy couple apart.

Joe Dirt 2 has elements of Forrest Gump, It's a Wonderful Life, The Wizard of Oz and Back to the Future 2 (you'll see) scattered throughout, but it's a movie that's aware of how silly it is. I had fun with it. I'm not sure if it has the same sparkle as the original, but that got better the more I watched it. I have a feeling this one will too. I would definitely give this a shot, and hopefully we see more great programming from Crackle. I can also recommend Sports Jeopardy! with Dan Patrick and Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Jerry Seinfeld. Crackle is free online or through your Roku and other devices.