Posted on 06/24/2008 6:55:54 AM PDT by yankeedame
June 20, 2008 - by Kyle Smith
Get Smart hits so many wrong comedic notes it’s as if it’s playing the piano in boxing gloves.
A few minutes into the movie, when (a version of) that briskly sinister title theme kicks in and Maxwell Smart heads for the sliding doors you’ll be happily ensconced, thinking: why mess with the classics? But shredding a classic is exactly what the filmmakers set about doing.
The latest big-screen adaptation of the 1960s TV spy comedy, originally conceived as a mashup of James Bond and Inspector Clouseau, completely misunderstands Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell), who in the original was arrogant but childlike, incompetent but unerring. He would say something utterly absurd with ironclad bravado and a stone face, then turn out to be right.
The new Smart is just a whiny nerd who is constantly being beaten down, often by his partner Agent 99 (a brittle and sarcastic Anne Hathaway, who will make you long for the airy adorableness of Barbara Feldon). In their first encounter, 99 literally knocks Max down on the sidewalk, like a middle linebacker.
Carell seems at a loss for ideas. He can’t imitate Don Adams, who played the original role with such dapper daffiness and got many of his laughs just by speaking in an officious quack (modeled after William Powell’s in The Thin Man).
Carell doesn’t do much of anything except project a general air of frustration and weakness.
When called upon to issue the series’ signature catchphrases (“Would you believe…,” “Missed it by that much,” “Sorry about that, Chief”) he sounds sheepish, except on one occasion midway through, which was the only time in the entire movie that I laughed.
Chasing some stolen nukes in Russia (the chief villain is Terence Stamp, aka General Zod in Superman II), Max and 99 go on a series of adventures that aren’t so much parodies of other movies as blurry copies.
There’s a midair parachute chase like the one in Moonraker, starring a hulking actor who looks exactly like the guy who played the steel-jawed assassin in that film. There’s also an interlocking-laser-beam field like the one in Entrapment and a dance scene at a black-tie party a la True Lies.
Instead of parodying these scenes, director Peter Segal (50 First Dates) simply restages them with some cheap har-har element. Example: when Max dances, it’s with a really fat girl. (There are also three different scenes during which we’re supposed to laugh for no other reason except that Carell is shown in flashback in a fat suit.)
Perhaps the worst idea was stealing an idea from the men’s room scene in Austin Powers, which only serves to highlight how much zanier and more original that spoof was.
The script roams desperately around a large ensemble of unnecessary characters in search of a laugh (Masi Oka, of NBC’s “Heroes,” and Nate Torrence, a sort of Jonah Hill clone play two superfluous young nerds who keep dropping in to clog up the movie).
It turns out they are on hand solely to prop up interest in a spinoff movie that is being concurrently released on DVD.
Only in scattered moments is the satiric silliness of the original Get Smart even visible, such as when Smart asks the new character Agent 23 (the Rock), “How was the assassination?” or when Smart meets an agent who is stationed inside a tree. That guy — the sap? — is played by Bill Murray, but instead of playing it straight while discussing the next mission he whines about being stuck in a tree, which ruins the joke.
One key to TV’s Get Smart was that it was deadpan — the characters never knew they were being funny. But the film is full of joshing that’s so witless it sounds like the dull banter of actual locker-room meatheads: fellow agents call Max “Maxi-pad” and “Maxine.”
After a mishap at a bakery, Smart and his fellow spies are derided as “the fabulous bakery boys.” The whole movie is as strange and clunky as that attempted joke. To put it another way, this is the Aughties equivalent of the unspeakable Tom Hanks/Dan Aykroyd version of Dragnet.
The characters cringe at their own failure to be funny, and so do we. As Max tells 99, “Not much of a laugher, are you?”
GET SMART
Directed by Peter Segal
Starring: Steve Carrell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson, Bill Murray
1 star/ 4
111 minutes/Rated PG-13
Umm. My wife wanted me to to see it with her. (I may be dumb - but I’m not stupid!). That, and we had already missed the showing for Ironman.
I don’t go to movies very often so I’m not too critical. It wasn’t very good though - seemed like just a lot of gags sort of strung together.
MY favorite line was: “We’re in postion. Pretty much.” as the evil Chaos guy radios to the others after his driver pulls up next to the curb but with about 3’ of the rear of the car still hanging out into the road. (Yeah - I guess if that was my favorite line the movie probably was pretty bad!)
“..the career of Robert Downey Jr, the liberal drug addict”
He was on some late-night show and said something to the effect that he is more conservative now. Something to the effect that being a compassionate liberal defending the choices people make is pretty tough to do after spending months in prison with them. He was serious - plus it gave me a good laugh. (No one else was laughing though).
I believe I've made my point.
They are such leftists It is a wonder that they havent come up with an mandatory tax on those that consume entertainment, with the proceeds distributed to the left and they dont have to produce any movies.....
Looks like his personal life as well as his professional career have benefitted from jail. I like those times when jail actually serves to rehabilitate.
Dan Ackroyd is still funny, but then I'm having to reach way back in SNL history to find him.
That's the main thing I worried about the movie. You can't catch the original Get Smart wit without Mel Brooks being in on it. The most you can do is try to imitate it.
It's not bad. The trick is to not take it as a serious movie. It's entertaining if you treat it as a standard dumb action flick.
WAYYYY back! LOL! Of course, there were the good ones. Ironically enough, Billy Crystal was not very memorable on SNL (except for the immortal “YOU LOOK MAHHHVELOUS”), but a comic genius everywhere else. I personally liked Second city TV back in the 1970’s.
I didn’t even find it entertaining. “Oh goish, we have to break into Buckingham palace!”
“Oh darn we have to break into the white house.”
“Oh shucks, now we have to kidnap the President!”
It was just like a long episode of the A Team.
I love it when a plan comes together!
LOVED ZOHAN!!!!!!!
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