‘Get Smart’:
Would you believe it’s OK?

At the Movies
By Senitra Horbrook

For a big-budget summer action comedy, Get Smart fails to live up to expectations. That’s probably because I had such high hopes based on the cast and funny previews.
Oops, guess I should have known better than to be excited about another silver screen-to-big screen adaptation, especially after the poorly performing Speed Racer last month (which I did not see).
That’s not to say Get Smart is terrible. In fact, it’s far from it. The movie’s main flaw is being forgettable moments after leaving the theater.
I never saw Get Smart when it originally aired, but like many of my generation, I watched it on Nick at Nite as a youngster and was a fan of both Don Adams as bumbling Maxwell Smart, a.k.a. Agent 86, and Barbara Feldon as level-headed Agent 99.
Steve Carell aptly fills the shoes (including the notable phone shoe) of Don Adams, whose Maxwell Smart character made the TV show a hit from 1965 to 1970. Carell (best known for The 40-Year-Old Virgin and TV’s The Office) has the clueless and bumbling yet earnest act down to a science.
Anne Hathaway, who still seems to be searching for the role that will lift her to superstardom, plays well off Carell’s jokes and is suitable as Agent 99.
While Carell and Hathaway step nicely into the roles created by Adams and Feldon, it’s the script that misses the mark. In the movie, Maxwell Smart is an analyst who longs to be an agent for secret government spy agency CONTROL, but is repeatedly denied because he is too good at his job.
When CONTROL is infiltrated by the evil KAOS and the identities of all the agents are known, Smart gets his chance to go out in the field on an international assignment and is paired with Agent 99 (whose name is never revealed).
A bigger screen means bigger action, and director Peter Segal throws in the usual action movie elements, namely a dramatic car chase and a climactic scene on a building rooftop.
For the most part, the plot felt more like a string of (a few) funny gags. Carell gets to wear a fat suit, dance with an overweight woman and have a bunch of arrows shot into his face. Those are the parts of the movie that are memorable. There also is a scene with Hathaway reminiscent of Catherine Zeta Jones working her way through lasers in Entrapment.
Hathaway and Carell seem more like good friends and have nice chemistry as partners on the job, but a romance between them feels extremely forced. As a new addition and supporting character Agent 23, Dwayne Johnson (this time he’s not credited as The Rock from his wrestling days) shows he can be funny and do well in a smaller role. Alan Arkin channels Edward Platt and plays The Chief (Max’s and 99’s boss) just right.
If you like the movie’s cast and enjoyed the TV show, Get Smart is worth checking out. There are plenty of nods to the TV show, including the shoe phone, cone of silence and the Sunbeam Tiger car. Get Smart is not the type of movie to watch again and again, but it’s entertaining enough for two hours in the movie theater. ••
Movie Grade: B