Get Smart Review

Posted by Jeffrey Harris on 06.23.2008

The movie misses it by *that* much.

GET SMART



Directed By: Peter Segal
Written By: Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember; Based on the TV series and characters created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry
Runtime: 110 min.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for some rude humor, action violence and language.
Official Website: Get Smart Official Movie Website

Maxwell Smart - Steve Carell
Agent 99 - Anne Hathaway
Agent 23 - Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson
The Chief - Alan Arkin
Agent 91 - Terry Crews
Larabee - David Koechner
Siegfried - Terence Stamp
Shtarker - Ken Davitian
Bruce - Masi Oka
Lloyd - Nate Torrence
The President - James Caan
Vice President - Geoff Pierson
Dalip - The Great Khali

The new Get Smart movie is now in theatres, the latest flick from Hollywood to adapt a classic TV series as a big budget, live action romp. The original series created by Buck Henry and comedy legend, Mel Brooks, was a spy comedy featuring the antics of Maxwell Smart. Smart is an agent of the organization CONTROL which is set against the villainous organization known as KAOS. The late, great Don Adams starred as the bumbling agent of good, Max Smart, before he would later play another much-loved bumbling spy character in animation, that of Inspector Gadget, which would later be re-imagined as a God awful live action movie in 1999 starring Matthew Broderick as the titular character.

Get Smart was revived over the years with TV movies in 1980's, but most terribly with the new short-lived series on Fox in 1995. This new Get Smart show featured the now older Max (Adams again) and his wife, Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon), along with their grown-up, chip off the old block son, Zach (Andy Dick). The series didn't last more than 7 episodes or so.

The new big budget live action movie goes for a faithful re-version of the original series, this time with Steve Carrell as Maxwell Smart. Max labors as an expert analyst for CONTROL, while he desires to be a top field agent, despite his general klutziness. The Chief (Arkin) respects Max's work ethic and skills, but believes he belongs behind a desk as an analyst. Things change after KAOS, who has been proliferating nukes and radioactive material to sell to dictators, attacks CONTROL and starts taking out their undercover agents. The Chief decides to partner Max with the lovely Agent 99 in order to get to the bottom of KAOS's plot and stop them.

Despite the drawbacks, the movie does try really hard to live up to the original, as well as incorporating the original's catchy theme music into the film score. Many old TV shows to modern live action flicks have been rather off from their original sources in terms of themes, spirit, and tone. The new Get Smart diverts from this pathway and does its best to emulate the classic TV series, albeit not all successfully. In interviews, Anne Hathaway talks about how they've tried to make the action look like The Bourne Identity where it comes off more like the Rush Hour movies. The new Get Smart probably could've sprung to be a bit more like Austin Powers. The action sequences and set pieces though on their own are very impressive, and director Peter Segal proves he can put together some strong action scenes which he will need to do if he ever ends up doing the long in development SHAZAM (You know, the DC Captain Marvel?) movie.

Carell does his best to mimic Adams schtick, and he does an OK job of it. It helps that Carell as a performer already carried himself in a similar manner to Adams as well as being a close physical match. What didn't quite work with Steve Carell's characterization as Max was Carell going from being super-competent to super-incompetent. It just seems rather impossible that Max can be so good with fire arms and hand to hand combat, as well as safely burying a nuclear power plant, when he can't even get himself out of plastic handcuffs without blowing a dozen small, sharp arrows into his body. Ultimately, the movie misses the character much the same way Steve Martin's new Pink Panther movie missed Inspector Clouseau. Smart would mostly save the day from dumb, bungling luck and the skills of others rather than himself. Clouseau never really solved any crime either. Things simply evolved in a way where Clouseau was able to stumble onto events somehow take the credit. Carell's Max Smart used to be a fattie before he lost weight to do better on his field agent tests which he has failed many times before. But Max Smart's character arc never really gets to the core of why Max wants so badly to be a field agent.

Other characters and performances come off as rather generic. Hathaway's uber-skilled Agent 99 is nothing special. Her scenes with Carell lack a great, sizzling chemistry, and the way they meet is fairly contrived along with her reply to Max saying something about competition.

And then there's The Rock, now credited under his real name Dwayne Johnson who is constantly trying to re-brand himself to remain relevant as a movie star so he can keep his asking price at its current level, despite not really having any significantly huge hits under his belt where he had the top billing. Johnson plays Agent 23, the top Control agent who is actually quite friendly with Max, and gets stuck at HQ after KAOS's initial attack. Johnson's Agent 23 just comes off as fairly plain and generic. He takes one pratfall pretty early that in terms of the character makes little sense. And then there's a rather predictable and dull plot twist that you should see coming.

For the villains there's Siegfried now played by Terence Stamp, and Shtarker by Borat's Davitian who thankfully keeps his clothes on for the entirety of this movie. Shtarker and Siegfried just come off as weak Bond villain wannabes. Siegfried has a little schtick which sadly amounts to using childish insults for his underlings. The role doesn't really amount to much, and is more or less an easy payday for Stamp. There's also WWE's The Great Khali who has a fairly significant role as Siegfried's KAOS henchman whom Max tries to befriend.

The movie is filled with cameos and visual references that fans of the original series should like, if you don't know about them already as many of them have been terribly kept secrets.

The 411: Get Smart doesn't quite live up to the level of the original series. But it is an admirable attempt for the most part. It's funny and enjoyable, but not hilarious to the level of other genre parodies like The Hot Fuzz or Shaun of The Dead. The movie isn't quite as bad as other TV show-turned-movies such as I Spy, Charlie's Angels, Miami Vice, Starsky and Hutch, and countless other blunders.

Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]