Movie review: The Three Stooges

The Farrelly Brothers have said they wanted the title characters in their updated The Three Stooges to be hyper-accurate reproductions of the slapstick performers.

Right down to the accents. And since Stooge Larry Fine was a Philadelphia guy (the Howards hail from Brooklyn), the Farrellys wanted an actor who could mimic his accent - I guess the hair was the easy part.

They cast Sean Hayes, best known for his role on the TV sitcom Will & Grace, and certainly nobody's first choice to play Larry, but give Hayes his due - maybe the best thing about The Three Stooges is his eerily pitched re-creation of Fine's unique voice. Anyone can get poked in the eye, but what Hayes does here is truly impressive.

In fact, the actors who play the Stooges (Chris Diamantopoulos is Moe, Will Sasso is Curly) all do a startling job of mimicry. The problem is that you feel the Farrellys' attention to detail may have gotten in the way of the larger mission - creating a workable movie around the central performances.

My hunch is the Farrellys took their writing cues from The Blues Brothers, a notably successful attempt to take characters from short-form comedy and fill a big screen. They've borrowed the basic premise - Moe, Larry, and Curly on a mission to save a Catholic orphanage (run by Jane Lynch, Jennifer Hudson, and, believe it or not, Larry David in nun drag) by raising nearly $1 million (the movie is set in the present day, and shot in color).

They hook up with a femme fatale (Sophia Vergara) who offers them money to kill her husband, all building to a TS finale - the Stooges invading an invitation-only party attended by rich swells, wreaking their infamous havoc. The movie approaches the execution of classic Stooge material in these big slapstick scenes, and manages to build momentum as it goes along.

But it gets off to an excruciating start - a long prologue featuring child versions of the adult Stooges, as the Farrellys build a labored backstory detailing the boys' history at the orphanage. It's more Little Rascals than Three Stooges, and doesn't do much to honor the memory of either troupe.

The Three Stooges may be too reverent for its own good - the movie only really comes to life when the Farrellys loosen the reins and toss in a freewheeling subplot about Moe turning up on the set of The Jersey Shore. Here, Moe's unmatched gift for insults, for sadistic punishment, is put to the best possible use.

Directed by Bobby and Peter Farrelly. With Sean Hayes, Will Sasso, Chris Diamantopoulos, Larry David, Jane Lynch, Sofia Vergara, Jennifer Hudson, and Kate Upton. Distributed by 20th Century Fox.

Running time: 1 hour, 32 mins.

Parent's guide: PG (slapstick action violence, rude and suggestive humor including profanity)

Playing at: area theaters

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