The Three Stooges
- Year:2012
- Rating:PG
- Director:Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly
- Cast:Chris Diamantopoulos, Sean Hayes, Will Sasso
- Release Date:June 28, 2012
- Distributor:20th Century Fox
- Running time:92 minutes
- Film Worth:$5.00
- FILMINK rates movies out of $20 - the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
It’s not tweaked enough to offer anything fresh, but its main failure is that it simply fails to deliver the laughs with a bunch of laboured jokes and gags.
The Three Stooges, Moe (Chris Diamantopoulos), Larry (Sean Hayes) and Curly (Will Sasso) were abandoned as infants at an orphanage. They're now grown up, having never ventured into the real world, and the place they call home is closing down due to economic ruin. Not wanting the children and nuns to be displaced, they set out to raise the $830,000 needed to save their home. They soon bump into Lydia (Sofia Vergara), a woman willing to give them the financial support they need in exchange for murdering her husband (Kirby Heyborne), so she can run off with her lover (Craig Bierko).
Years ago Sean Penn, Jim Carrey and Benicio del Toro were loosely attached to the main roles, which could have made this project something really special. Instead, they were scrapped for lesser-known actors in the hope that it would ensure the preservation of the Stooges and their humour. The Farrelly brothers (who have delivered such comic hits as Dumb & Dumber and There's Something About Mary, but whose output has arguably waned recently with efforts like Hall Pass and The Heartbreak Kid) wanted the characters to remain true to their original counterparts, but a reinvention might have been the story's saviour.
The nuns running the orphanage snag a few laughs and are quite well cast, with Jane Lynch as Mother Superior, Jennifer Hudson as Sister Rosemary, and an initially almost unrecognisable Larry David as Sister Mary Mengele. However, the story's most entertaining element is Moe being "discovered" and cast on Jersey Shore. While the youth of today might not be entirely familiar with the Three Stooges, they certainly know the Jersey Shore cast members.
The actors themselves aren't bad; they're simply doing what is required of them. But the bottom line is The Three Stooges just isn't funny. The over-the-top physical, slapstick gags are incessant and unrelenting. And while its running time is brief, it feels a lot longer.
