Surprise! Reviews for The Three Stooges – the long-gestating production from the Farrelly Brothers, in theaters today – are in, and they are not all full of angry puns. Considering its tortured production history, and the latter day cinematic sins of the Farrelly Brothers, and the fact that it’s, you know, a Three Stooges movie, you’d have been safe assuming the flick was destined for Razzie glory.

As the story goes, real-deal once-and-future A-Listers Sean Penn, Jim Carrey, and Benicio del Toro were all at one point attached to the movie. But an epic rotation of stalls and drop-outs followed, and the movie now limps into theaters with slightly less star power. Tasked with making Stooges work on the big screen are the vets Sean Hayes, Will Sasso, and Chris Diamantopoulos. A tall order, if you’re an optimist; an impossible one, if you’re a mean-spirited blogger. But! It turns out this thing may not be a complete and utter abomination. Right now Stooges is enjoying a wholly non-terrible 44% Tomatometer reading. And just listen to some of these measured, mild commendations. “This film will have you intermittently in stitches,” raves the Boston Herald. “An unabashedly moronic celebration of slap shtick …, The Three Stooges weighs in at about 15 howlers over 90 minutes. Not bad,” screams the The Globe and the Mail rave. “They made me laugh … this reaction will not be universal,” declares the the Akron Beacon-Journal. Internet, I think you (maybe, almost) owe someone an apology.