Stooge On!

The Three Stooges (2012) did not seem like a promising idea. In fact, it seemed hubristic, sacrilegious, even, for the Farrelly Bros. (modern-day hacks, in my opinion) to take on these icons of classic slapstick. But it worked out pretty well.

Early reports had all kinds of scary rumors about who was going to play who: Jim Carrey as Curly, Adam Sandberg, Johnny Depp, horrible things. In the end, Will Sasso as Curly, Sean Hayes as Larry and Chris Diamantopoulos are just about perfect. The script is a nice mix of classic gags (which the original Stooges constantly re-used) and updated material: Moe goes on Jersey Shore, which is just about right.

The movie's strength and weakness, in my opinion, is that it is really about Moe. The emotional center of the movie is a monologue by Moe where he breaks up the team go solo. It takes the movie into another realm, beyond slapstick and pastiche. But Larry and Curly don't get the same treatment. Sasso's Curly is very accurate, but doesn't really have a lot to do, beyond saying things like "Soitainly!"

Still, no objections. They pulled it off, and the difficulty level is high.