I’m a huge Three Stooges fan. Ever since I was a very young kid, my dad would use every opportunity to inflict some Stooges action on me. Be it on TV, VHS or even Betamax. And then came the announcement of a movie, in 2012. I must admit that I wasn’t too excited at the prospect, but when the likes of Jim Carrey and Sean Penn were rumoured to be starring, I got excited. Then when they fell through, I lost the excitement. When a final cast was announced I just went “MEH”.
Sean Hayes (Will and Grace) is Larry, Will Sasso (Family Guy) was taking on Curly and Chris Diamantopoulos (American Dad!) would dish out the punishment as Moe. Without discrediting the cast, this was a very unknown cast for the Farrelly Brothers take on The Three Stooges.
Segmented into episodes, Moe, Larry and Curly end up in a manner of scrapes while trying to save the orphanage which raised them. And when I say a manner of scrapes, think murder plots and reality TV shows.
I was blown away by Sean Hayes, Will Sasso, and Chris Diamantopoulos who share a phenomenal resemblance to the Stooges both in mannerisms and accents. This is a really fantastic impression by all involved. If you’re a Stooges fan you’ll be convinced that the famous threesome have come back to life. If I had to be critical, Sean Hayes isn’t a complete replica of Larry, but that aside its pretty spot on. There’s a decent supporting cast here as well including Larry David, Jane Lynch (Glee) and Sofia Vergara.
On the other side of the coin though, if you’re not a Stooges fan (or don’t even know who they are)you may well take a dislike to this. Young kids though, will absolutely love the slapstick humour here which comes at you in absolute bucket loads.
It’s a very brave move for the Farrellys to bring back something that first arrived in the 1909 (granted the threesome didn’t land until the 30’s) s. And for me at least, it works very, very well. The cast are fantastic, the slapstick is hilarious. There’s a great pace to this and it genuinely is a funny, feel good movie. If you’re a Stooges fan this is a MUST see and even if you’re not, leave the brain at the door and see a fantastic tribute to the men who really defined slapstick! More Nyuk, Nyuk than Yuk, Yuk. Give it a go, you’ll be surprised.
