Movie review: The Three Stooges ***

Stars: Sean Hayes, Will Sasso, Chris Diamantopoulos, Larry David
Director: Bobby and Peter Farrelly
Rated: PG
Showing: Liberty Theatre week of Friday, April 20. For more information call 292-7296.
Tickets: Buy tickets online
Runtime: 92 minutes
Comedy

There's an inner 9-year-old in us all, dying to get out, to laugh at pratfalls, slaps, eye-pokes and fart jokes.

That's what Fox and the Farrelly Brothers are counting on. That's why they've revived The Three Stooges, those princes of the puerile, champions of the childish and lions of lowbrow.

And from the moment Larry David appears, in full nun's wimple and habit, as Sister Mary-Mengele (hah!), this updating of the Stooges works. (Or should we say "woiks"?)

We meet them the day they're hurled, in a bundle, at the door of an orphanage. They grow into troublesome orphans with bad haircuts. Even as 10-year-olds, Moe (Skyler Gisondo), Larry (Lance Chantiles-Wertz) and Curly (Robert Capron of Diary of a Wimpy Kid) just say "Nyuck" and are accidents waiting to happen.

But Mother Superior (Jane Lynch) and Sister Rosemary (Jennifer Hudson) tolerate them. For decades.

So that when, 35 years after arriving there, their orphanage faces foreclosure, the sort-of adult Larry (Sean Hayes), Curly (Chris Diamantopoulos) and Moe (Will Sasso) are there to save the day. Sort of.

But it's going to be impossible to raise $830,000 through ineptly performed odd jobs. Fortunately, they run into a femme fatale (Sofia Vergara, at her Vergara-iest) who wants them to smother her "dying" husband.

The Farrellys, who have fallen off raunchy comedy's cutting edge in recent years, manage the right tone. Sound effects amp up the laughs and they've scored with their casting. This originally was supposed to have Oscar-winning stars, but thankfully, Sean Penn is nowhere to be found.

The new Stooges are affectionate homages to the originals: Moe and Curly Howard and Larry Fine. Hayes (of TV's Will & Grace) is the most mannered, and the only one you see giving a performance. Not that he isn't funny as all get-out. But Sasso and Diamantopoulos ARE Moe and Curly.

The Farrellys cleaned up their act for a kiddie audience. They even appear on camera for a "don't do this at home" disclaimer at the end, because, as ever, the Stooges are for kids.

Not that plenty of grownups won't get a kick out of what Moe does to The Jersey Shore. Because they have it coming.

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