I never thought I could be this disappointed by a movie I had no expectations for.

The remake of “The Three Stooges,” helmed by Peter and Robert Farrelly of “Dumb and Dumber” fame, went through production hell for almost a decade. The first trailer for the movie was released last December to fairly negative responses, but I viewed it with restrained optimism. It seems that I was being overly generous.

When “Stooges” is doing what it’s supposed to do, namely extended scenes of the Stooges beating each other up, it’s fantastic. The actors are superbly cast: Chris Diamantopoulos, Sean Hayes and Will Sasso as Moe, Larry and Curly respectively nail the classic comedic characters, both physically and vocally. Even the child actors for the scenes portraying their childhood are eerily on-the-nose. The slapstick is hilarious, and extremely faithful to the source material. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come up very much.

The movie not only has an overdrawn A-plot involving the Stooges trying to raise money to save the orphanage that they grew up in, but it also has two B-plots that they have almost nothing to do with. The climaxes of both B-plots, which overpower the already needless A-plot, have the Stooges standing in the background the entire time, watching the supporting characters resolve their pointless conflicts. I had to restrain myself from shouting “Get on with it” at the movie screen, restraint that others I saw the movie with did not possess. An hour could be cut from its 90-minute running time and it would still feel slow.

The real kicker that drove “The Three Stooges” off the cliff of mediocrity onto the sharp rocks of terrible is the epilogue. Before the credits roll, two over-muscled actors portraying the Farrelly brothers come on screen, and explain that all of the stunts were performed by trained professionals, and begin to demonstrate the rubber props and stage-fighting techniques used in the movie. I was stunned, as if a magician had walked onstage after a show and shown me the panel in his hat, or the wire up his sleeve. I know how it’s done, but I don’t want it blasted in my face. The entire incident left me with one of the most sour aftertastes from a movie since “Spider-Man 3.”