CineVegas Review: Get Smart
Filed under: Comedy, New Releases, Theatrical Reviews, Festival Reports, CineVegas
The slick new version of the dusty 1960s television comedy Get Smart is one of the better TV adaptations to come along in recent years. It's faithful to the original without being overly reverential, it modernizes the premise without mocking it, and you can fully enjoy it even if you've never seen the TV series. Oh, and best of all -- it's funny.
Steve Carell deserves much of the credit for that, easily rebounding from the dubious Evan Almighty (which I thought was OK, thanks to him) and reminding us of the 40-year-old virgin we fell in love with. Carell is a master with awkward, inept characters (as he demonstrates week after week on The Office), and Maxwell Smart proves to be a perfect fit for his skills. Or maybe he's just so good that he can make ANY character seem like it was tailor-made for him.
Maxwell Smart, as you may know from the shticky old show created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, is an agent for CONTROL, a secret government organization that's even more under-the-radar than the CIA. The public was told that CONTROL was disbanded when the Cold War ended, but it continues to operate secretly in the customary underground facilities. (Washington D.C. would have to be completely hollow to house all the various fictional government groups whose headquarters are under its streets.)
Max is an analyst, an expert at gleaning important details from seemingly innocuous conversations that are picked up by CONTROL surveillance. He longs to be a field agent, though, and that dream is fulfilled when CONTROL's agents' identities are compromised and the chief (Alan Arkin) must send out someone unrecognizable to defeat the evil KAOS.
As the newly dubbed Agent 86, Max is partnered with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway), who is safe to use because she recently had plastic surgery that altered her appearance. (The film tries to use this to reduce the 20-year age difference between Hathaway and Carell -- Agent 99 is actually older than she looks! -- but I ain't buyin' it.) Where Max is bumbling and often oblivious, Agent 99 is whip-smart, highly skilled, and unwilling to put up with nonsense. Their mission? Track down Siegfried (Terence Stamp), the evil mastermind who has been obtaining nuclear materials and who no doubt has unsavory plans for them.
Anne Hathaway, who has gradually been developing her comedy chops over the years, surprised me with her complete mastery of the Agent 99 role, and in particular with her prowess as a foil for Carell. They are a far better comic pair than I would have imagined, with crisp timing and a believable wariness of one another. Less believable is the romance that inevitably develops between them; they're a lot more plausible as platonic work buddies than as lovers.
What I particularly like about the screenplay (from Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember, the duo behind 2006's Failure to Launch) is that Max is not rendered as an incompetent boob who occasionally stumbles into success, nor as a brilliant agent who outsmarts everyone. Instead, he's a mixture of both. Not only is this less stereotypical -- most films would make him one or the other -- but it opens the doors for a lot of comic possibilities. Max screws up just often enough for us to feel some satisfaction when he gets it right. We can relate to him, as opposed to pitying or being in awe of him.
Considering the director, Peter Segal, also made Tommy Boy, Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, and 50 First Dates, I think it's safe to say that Get Smart is the most sophisticated work of his career. He indulges in a few cheap gags here and there -- a vomit-based joke, and one where two guys are wrestling, and observers think it looks like they're having sex (which it never does; I don't know why filmmakers keep going back to that one) -- but most of the sight gags are better than that. The cast, which also includes Dwayne Johnson, David Koechner, and Bill Murray (in a bizarre cameo) as CONTROL agents, and James Caan as a Bush-like U.S. president, is uniformly sharp, never over-the-top.
The "action" part of action comedies seldom makes much sense, and Siegfried's plan is typically nonsensical. But as long as the "comedy" part works, it's OK with me. Did I mention that Max recently lost 150 pounds, and there are flashbacks to his fat days? Heaven help me, but if there's one thing funnier than Steve Carell, it's a fat Steve Carell.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-16-2008 @ 12:58PM
Riley Freeman said...
i hope they pay their respects to Don Adams in the movie. I am just turned 25 years old and this show is way before my time but i used to watch the reruns here in canada on YTV tv station and i loved this show and him. It was a great and a lot of people see Steve Carrell and have no clue who he is playing in this movie so hopefully they pay their respects in this movie.
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6-16-2008 @ 1:42PM
Bob Dole said...
i HATE awkward comedy, if i could KILL awkward comedy i would ......
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6-16-2008 @ 4:30PM
YouFaceTheTick said...
Wow. Hate awkward comedy? Like the 3 walled, setup-punchline stuff more, eh?
6-16-2008 @ 7:44PM
Robin said...
...or a swift kick to the balls, apparently.
6-16-2008 @ 2:08PM
Esoterikal said...
Ever since I saw the first trailer for this movie, I've been wary about it. When I actually heard the premise, my wariness increased. Your review has done nothing to placate my unease. Apparently this movie has been designed for people who have never heard of the original. The comedy in the original came from his supreme confidence in his inadequate skill-set. Never for a second did he believe he could fail, and through sheer force of will (and 99's brilliant support), he never did. I love Steve Carell, but I don't love his work, he's been horribly miscast in a horribly mis-written movie based on a tv show that I love.
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6-16-2008 @ 4:28PM
Riley Freeman said...
im not the biggest steve carrell but who else do u think could play don adams? im not judging u im just genuinely curious about ur opinion. i cant think of anyone else
6-17-2008 @ 1:12AM
Esoterikal said...
I've spent some time considering this, and I've yet to come to a good conclusion. The only actor I kept coming back to, and is unfortunately not a realistic possibility, is Chevy Chase. He (is? was?) a master of confident incompetence. I think Ryan Reynolds could do a good job, but he doesn't have the right look.
I very much see your point, but it really begs the question of why it was made. If you don't have a talent to match Don Adams, what is the point?
6-16-2008 @ 4:32PM
YouFaceTheTick said...
Not a fan of the show. Not really a Steve Carell fan either (he is the only bad part of The Office) but I'm mildly intrigued by this. I worry that it's still too much about setting up a joke rather than following a coherent plot. This seems more like Austin Powers 2 and 3 and little like Austin Powers 1.
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6-16-2008 @ 7:57PM
Robin said...
You lost me at "only bad part of The Office."
6-17-2008 @ 11:25AM
DAVID F said...
Saw this at a screening last night and....I CANNOT remember when I laughed this hard in the theater! AND it was cuz the movie was funny! Not only was it a great tribute and update to a classic TV series but it reminded me what a fun, summer action comedy is supposed to be! What a cast, just dead-on, all of them....Alan Arkin rocks! Just when I was growing tired of Carell's comedy and wishing for more "Little Miss Sunshine" from him....he surprised me. He wasn't overplayin' it, hammin' it up or imitating the great Don Adams. I'd easily see more of these!
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6-18-2008 @ 9:25PM
Mel said...
I, too, saw "Get Smart" at an advance screening earlier this week.
Normally, I'd avoid movies like this -- and it was quite silly, but when I thought about it later, I do confess to having laughed quite a bit at the antics displayed on the big screen (much as I remember doing back in the mid-1960s when the TV version starring Don Adams first came on network TV.
So, for all its faults, "Get Smart" is a fun summer movie, sufficiently goofy to take your mind off all that's going on in the real world..
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6-20-2008 @ 11:38PM
BrianO said...
I was a fan of the original series and I just saw the movie last night. To those who are worried that it won't be the same as the original I will say that A) You're right. It's different in a few crucial ways, but B) It's still darn funny as it's been presented.
Eric covered the main differences in his review - namely that 99 had plastic surgery and Max used to be obese, and of course that Max is not the 100% clueless buffoon that he was in the series. The first two are minor things to explain why 99 looks so young (as Eric explained) and why Max is only now becoming an agent at such an "advanced" age.
The difference in his competence of course makes Max a different character from the one Don Adams played, but he's still funny. Again, Eric said all this so I'll stop rephrasing his observations and just repeat the crucial point that it...is...funny! What more do you want from a comedy?
There are several tips of the hat to the original - from the opening doors/phone booth sequence to the display of the original shoe phone and Sunbeam "spy car" to a cameo appearance by the original Siegfried. There are also classic lines that old-school fans will recognize such as "missed it by that much", "the old ... trick", and "sorry about that, Chief."
All in all I can only say that I agree with Eric right down the line. It's not exactly the same as the 60s version, but the humor, the action (such as it is), and the on-screen chemistry make this a must-see for everyone with a funny bone.
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6-21-2008 @ 12:21AM
corned_beef said...
"[Steve Carell] is the only bad part of The Office"
Now THAT'S funny.
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6-22-2008 @ 7:07PM
Rip Ragged said...
I don't watch TV anymore. Steve Carell means nothing to me until today. I was a die-hard fan of the Get Smart TV series, though, so I had to give the movie a chance.
As a tribute, it was very good. As a movie in and of itself it was fun to watch. Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway did a fabulous job in homage to Don Adams and Barbara Feldman. I will own the DVD.
That said, Steve Carell is no Don Adams. The comic timing was good, and funnier than hell, but Don Adams made Maxwell Smart. And nobody can utter the phrase, "Oh, Max" like Barbara Feldman could.
Fun movie. More analysis than that just spoils it.
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