Wednesday, January 9, 2013

The Three Stooges (2012) * *







Directed by:  Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly

Starring:  Chris Diamontopolous (Moe), Sean Hayes (Larry), Will Sasso (Curly), Sofia Vergara, Craig Bierko


I'm at the age now in which I realize that The Three Stooges should be taken in small doses.   If I were to stumble across them on TV, I would probably watch one short and be satisfied.    Any more than that would be overkill for me.    Such is my feeling about this movie, which is technically three episodes, but the entire process is about 90 minutes.     It's more than enough Stooges.

This film is nearly a decade in the making.    At first, Moe, Larry, and Curly were to be played by Benicio Del Toro, Sean Penn, and Jim Carrey, but all eventually dropped out.     Unless the film was a biopic of the Stooges,  I wouldn't be much interested in seeing actors of that caliber slapping each other around.     The actors playing the Stooges here are very good impressionists and are convincing enough, but I couldn't muster up a lot of enthusiasm for the whole enterprise.    I guess for me there is only so much face-slapping, ear-pulling, and sledgehammer-hitting I can watch without becoming bored.

The film isn't without a couple of laughs and a very appealing sequence in which Jersey Shore cast members get smacked around by Moe.   How Moe hooks up with the Jersey Shore cast I will not reveal, except to say that it mixes in nicely with the plot of the guys trying to raise $830,000 to save the orphanage they grew up in and lived in until the present day.    Why is the amount so much?   If you factor in all the years the Stooges were there causing havoc, you can imagine the costs that incur.   

The Three Stooges isn't a terrible movie.    If you're watching a Three Stooges movie, you expect certain things and this movie delivers on those expectations.    It has no real interest in being anything other than what it is.    That's fine, not every film has "Oscar" written all over it.    But you either enjoy what you're seeing or you don't.    For me, it's all one big "meh". 

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