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I used a movie gift card that's been laying around for awhile and took in the Stooges movie.  This was a 4:45 p.m. screening at our local downtown AMC.  I was the only patron in the stadium theater auditorium.  I took my "sweet seat" which is in the last row in the center and surveyed my kingdom during this "private" unspooling.  Loaded up with popcorn, candy, and a drink, all courtesy of the gift card, I was ready to go.

Cutting to the chase:  I enjoyed myself while recognizing that it falls considerably short of being a really good movie.  This is a different kettle of fish than your celebrity biopic.  Those films attempt to tell the story of the individual(s) with certain re-enactments of their work.  Sometimes the attempt to duplicate the original actor(s) is elaborate (Rod Steiger in W.C. FIELDS & ME), but most often it falls short (Donald O'Connor in THE BUSTER KEATON STORY, James Cagney in MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES). 

Seldom have their been attempts to re-create characters with lookalike actors playing the originals in a new work.  I remember the Laurel & Hardy film (THE ALL NEW ADVENTURES OF LAUREL & HARDY IN "FOR LOVE OR MUMMY"), which wasn't good, and The Little Rascals movie, which I didn't see.  I might include the short-lived IBM (I think it was) TV commercials that featured Charlie Chaplin's Tramp character.  So far nobody has tried to imitate Abbott & Costello.  The Stooges impersonations and the exacting replication of their physical and vocal schtick goes beyond most pictures of this sort.  For the most part, I never found myself thinking "Too bad he doesn't look/sound more like one of the Stooges."  It's true that Will Sasso is a way too tall Curly and  Chris Diamantopoulos isn't as broad/squat as Moe (he just looks like a thin Moe), but these are Fine (!) realizations of the original Stooges.  In particular, the vocal tones, especially of Sean Hayes' Larry, seem like special achievements.

I liked the early scenes with the kid versions of the trio and could even envision a whole series of Stooges-as-kids adventures.  There's some nice little stuff for Stooges fans.  The orphanage was founded in 1934, the year the boys started their series at Columbia.  And when they ring their bells on their tricycle, it mimics their "hello... hello... hello..." musical ditty.  And this is the first time that I can recall when we see that the boys really love each other.  So there's some heart in the picture besides the obvious affection for the characters themselves.  The "don't try this at home" admonition at the end by the Farrelly Brothers was probably a smart idea to forestall the type of criticism from parents that I used to hear about the Stooges as a kid growing up and absolve them of any future blame.  However, the buff brother who likes to show off his build struck me as just a wee bit creepy.

I've got to mention that Larry David, who plays a nun, made a pretty good Larry himself back in the early 1980s when he was a regular on the ABC network SNL knock off FRIDAYS.  His Moe was Bruce Mahler (POLICE ACADEMY)  and his Curly was the very talented John Roarke.  If you leave as the credits roll you'll miss the music video.  It's not very good but we get to see the Stooges as modern pop singers.  It looks like a lot of footage wound up on the cutting room floor and I hope it's included on the DVD.  There's a couple of weird moments of product placement involving Geico when something is said about saving 15% off on insurance and the Geico gecko is referenced as an alligator.

This is a hard one to recommend, even to Stooges fans, maybe even moreso to Stooges fans.  I laughed out loud in the empty theater a couple of times (there is one slap and poke sequence that just about outdoes the real Stooges and there's other virtuoso level antics of that sort, too), and smiled a lot, but if anybody besides kids is going to enjoy this movie it's more likely to be a fan.

I get it now.  Idealized versions of the Farrellys.  Now that you mention it, I seem to remember them as a couple of nerdy looking guys with glasses.  I thought it was meant as a send-up but, well, they put one over on me!