THE POPCORN REEL FILM REVIEW/"Get Smart"
Playing Dumb To "Get Smart"
By
Omar P.L. Moore/June
20, 2008
The Un-Avengers: Anne Hathaway as Agent 99
and Steve Carell as Maxwell Smart, aka Agent 86, in Peter Segal's "Get Smart",
which opened today in the U.S. and Canada. (Photo: Warner Brothers)
"Get Smart" does its best to be an engaging film, providing very funny moments
at times with talented performers in a very good assemblage of actors, but as a
complete film doesn't appear to know whether it wants to be a full-fledged
comedy or a complete action film. Peter Segal's sometimes smart-aleck film
has many laughs but a lot of them emerge via sadistic or masochistic violence,
something that wasn't necessarily present in the American television series of
the 1960's and '70's. With a cast that includes Steve Carell, Anne
Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson, Alan Arkin and James Caan, why would there be a need
to have an overload of unnecessary violence to plug the gaps of a shaky
narrative? No one is suggesting that the protagonists save the world armed
with water pistols or bb guns, but why is it necessary to brandish a firearm or
stapler guns at a moment's notice in a situation where violence isn't even being
threatened?
Tom J. Astle & Matt Ember wrote the script based on characters originally
created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, and the film finds Maxwell Smart aka Agent
86 (Mr. Carell), who gets eighty-sixed on numerous occasions seeking a promotion
for all his hard work -- and he is promoted within the spy agency CONTROL, which
has to battle the evil forces of KAOS led by the appropriately-named Siegfried
(Terence Stamp) whose ambition it is to plant nuclear weapons in Los Angeles.
Siegfried gets help from Shtarker ("Borat"'s Ken Davitian) and from a Richard
Kiel "Jaws"-like character from "Moonraker". This part of the film is the
least interesting of course, and the most likable aspect of "Get Smart", which
opened across the U.S. and Canada today, is the camaraderie among the agents and
other personnel in the CONTROL community, which includes Mr. Johnson as Agent
23, David Koechner as Larabee and Terry Crews as Agent 91. When you add
"Heroes" television star Masi Oka as Bruce and Nate Torrence as Lloyd, you have
good all-around chemistry, and one wishes that this was more a centerpiece of
"Get Smart". Most of all though, the snappy Mr. Carell and the beautiful
Ms. Hathaway bicker like a long-term matrimonial outfit -- they are very much
the anti-Patrick McGee and Diana Rigg, the two stars from the 1960's and '70's
British TV series "The Avengers" -- although like that duo they see plenty of
action albeit in more humorous ways.
"Get Smart", released by Warner Brothers, cannot resist lazily poking fun at all
the usual "safe" targets: excessively overweight women, swarthy men deemed by
some to be "suspicious" and terrorist, maniacal old men running their mouths and
running out of control of their sanity, and Don Juans who think they are God's
gift to themselves and vanity. In this regard the film is formulaic and
these rote aspects weigh the film down.
Conversely, Mr. Segal's film is noteworthy in its occasional sagacity, putting
satire front and center at a juncture in the film that is goofy, specifically a
parody of the ill-fated "My Pet Goat" moment when the current president sat in a
Florida classroom reading to sixth graders while terrorist attacks were visited
upon the United States in 2001. James Caan does a good job of
playing the president in the few minutes of face time he gets. Other
cameos occur, but overall the structure of "Get Smart" is too breezy and
unstable to constitute the security that CONTROL itself is seeking to preserve.
"Get Smart" is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for
some rude humor, action violence and language. The film's duration is one
hour and 50 minutes.
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