Review by Bob Ignizio
I grew up watching The Three Stooges on
Cleveland's UHF Channel 43 as part of local movie host Superhost's
“Mad Theatre” program that aired every Saturday afternoon. As a
result, to a large extent, my sense of humor was shaped by seeing the
boys smack each other around in their classic Columbia Pictures
shorts. As a fan, I had mixed
feelings about the idea of a new group of actors becoming modern day
Stooges for a feature film directed by The Farelly Brothers (THERE'S
SOMETHING ABOUT MARY, KINGPIN), but nonetheless I was willing to give THE THREE STOOGES a chance.
The Farrelly's
clearly love and understand the Stooges, including the fact that the
boys work best in short form – the film is broken into three
separate shorts that do tie together, but could just as easily have
worked on their own. As for the stars, Chris Diamantopoulos, Sean
Hayes, and Will Sasso all do a splendid job of resurrecting Moe,
Larry, and Curly, respectively. As good as they are, though, it's
still a little distancing (not to mention kind of morbid) seeing the actors playing their roles as if they weren't themselves, but rather other (dead) actors
playing those characters. Personally, I would have
preferred a completely new trio of idiots with their own
personalities doing more or less the same slapstick routines, but I
know better than to seriously believe that would have ever gotten a
green light in Hollywood.
My
biggest issues with THE THREE STOOGESare with the first segment of the film, titled “More Orphan Than
Not”. It's sort of an origin story for the boys, “The Stooges
Begin”, if you will. This is the kind of unnecessary, "explain
everything:" storytelling I hate. I don't need to see the Stooges as
kids in an orphanage. I don't care how they came together. Just send
them out to do some plumbing at some rich guy's mansion and throw some pies,
already. I also found the
way the movie rips on the foster parent system a little off-putting
in a film aimed at kids, some of whom presumably may be living with foster parents.
Once the origin
story is dispensed with, segments 2 and 3 actually turn out to be
pretty funny. They're not perfect by any means, but if you remember
the original Stooges shorts, they weren't exactly models of tight
plotting. In fact if anything, the script by the Farrelly's and Mike
Cerrone is too linear and logical, with not nearly enough
surreal non sequiturs and sudden plot shifts to truly capture the
flavor of the originals.
Adding
considerably to the entertainment value of these segments are Sofia
Vergara and the cast of Jersey Shore.
Vergara is a perfect comic foil for the boys, and who wouldn't want
to see Moe eye poke, slap, and generally abuse the hell out of
Snooki, The Situation, and all the rest? In the end, though, THE
THREE STOOGES
just doesn't gel into a satisfying whole for me. My issues with the
first segment aside, it's... okay. I can't really recommend that
anyone plunk down their hard earned cash to see it, nor would I try
to dissuade anyone who thought the trailer was funny from going.
Despite my issues with the film, I still laughed a fair amount, but
ultimately I left the theater feeling “eh”. 2 out of 4 stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment
We approve all legitimate comments. However, comments that include links to irrelevant commercial websites and/or websites dealing with illegal or inappropriate content will be marked as spam.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.