Get Smart Review
by Homer Yen (homeryen88 AT gmail DOT com)June 28th, 2008
Suprisingly "Smart"
by Homer Yen
(c) 2008
Remember the Get Smart television show? I remembered the bumbling spy who somehow managed to thwart the evilest of evil plans thanks to his shoe phone, timely assistance from others, and sheer dumb luck. Though most of the original cast is now in television heaven, I think that they would have had a good time with the updated version that has just hit theatres.
"Get Smart" is a brisk spy/comedy (not a spy spoof) in which CONTROL agents work furiously to outwit their KAOS adversaries. CONTROL suffers a security breakdown that compromises most of their operatives. The Chief (Alan Arkin) can only turn to two of his agents. One is the agent-without-a-name, Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway). The other is Maxwell Smart (Steve Carrell), who has been generously updated as a spy with the deductive abilities of Sherlock Holmes and the fighting skills of James Bond. Don't worry though, for he still possesses his mixture of grand naïveté and sheer dumb luck.
You couldn't ask for a better cast. Who better a fit to play Maxwell Smart than Steve Carrell? His comic timing and his deadpan delivery always create laughs in every scene. He's like the wiseacre who cracks a joke just as you're sipping your drink. Then, you suddenly spit it out because you can't help but laugh. Anne Hathaway is very refreshing in a Julia-Roberts-sort-of-way. She, the seasoned agent, is bothered by Smart's inexperienced ways. After all, who would jump out of an airplane and forget the parachute? Who would inhale a toxic dart? Who would try to execute a difficult lift on the dance floor with someone twice his size?
The supporting cast is also terrific. Fine performances are given by Alan Arkin who plays the Chief of Control as more of an irked 3rd grade teacher than a stuffy bureaucrat. He explains frantically to one of his agents that Control is not a place where they staple other people's heads. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who plays the Hollywood-esque Agent 23, plays a frustrated agent who is unhappy with his new management/desk job but who is happy with a stapler in his hand. And there are other agents and tech geeks that lend a gag here and there.
Smart listens to hours upon hours of intelligence chatter. From those conversations, he surmises what out-of-the-way foreign restaurant they can visit to find clues; where a major arms dealer resides; and how to ingratiate themselves with a big, bad, enemy henchman. Despite it being a big-budget summer film, it's the quieter scenes featuring the crisp verbal comedy that make the film good, such as when Maxwell Smart attempts to establish the upper hand against the mastermind of KAOS.
Smart: "There are 300 hundred Control Agents outside this building." KAOS Mastermind: "No, there is not."
Smart: "Would you believe 20 SWAT members?"
KAOS Mastermind: "No."
Smart: "How about Chuck Norris with a B.B.gun?"
The blockbuster budget allows the film creators to have set pieces and action sequences that are far bigger than anything you would have seen on the TV show. And, at times, it veered away from what made Get Smart (the TV show) so simple and funny by adding in too much action. The whole last act, for example, seemed overblown. The best parts are certainly not the scenes where you can see the film's budget skyrocketing upwards. "Get Smart" is, nonetheless, a crowd-pleasing popcorn film. It offers laughs. It offers wit. It offers style.
Grade: B
S: 1 out of 3
L: 1 out of 3
V: 1 out of 3
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