The Three Stooges

The Three Stooges isn’t a biopic about the trio of vaudeville comics who made eye gouging, hair pulling and face slapping an art form in their classic series of short movies in the 1930s and 1940s. It isn’t an updating of their antics to appeal to a new generation of moviegoers… or at least that’s not all it is. The Three Stooges is a celebration, a shameless tribute to one of the best physical comedy teams to ever step in front of a camera, as well as a love letter to the fans, like the Farrelly brothers, who grew up watching them, most likely on television. But what’s the new film about? Basically, it’s the story of how Moe, Larry and Curly — played with real comic gusto by Chris Diamantopoulos, Sean Hayes and Will Sasso – as they try to earn enough money to keep the orphanage they were raised in from being closed. The basic joke is that after spending most of their lives at the orphanage, the boys have absolutely no clue how to deal with the real world, so every situation they find themselves in is a set up for their Stooge-like behavior. In other words, there is a lot of eye gouging, hair pulling and face slapping. There’s a good amount of verbal slapstick, too, an important part of the original act that The Stooges never got enough credit for. There’s also a lot of heart, too, even if it is buried deep beneath the eye gouging, hair pulling and face slapping.