Movie Review: Get Smart (2008)

Stars: 3 out of 5
Pros: Overall story; the Gadget Geeks

Cons: Most of the jokes are sexual or bathroom related

The Bottom Line:

Max heads to big screen

Sadly his antics aren't good

It could be better

As Max Says, "Missed It by That Much."

If you are rooting for the agents of CONTROL over the agents of KAOS, you must be talking about the old TV show Get Smart. This 60's TV classic created by Mel Brooks spoofed the spy genre and the Cold War with a huge sense of fun and silly. I catch the occasional episode and laugh at the silly antics while shaking my head at how everything comes together.

As it happens, this show is this summer's TV rerun turned big screen flick. I laughed. I cringed. I held my breath. And, ultimately, I wished I'd listened to my two roommates who saw it opening night and hated it. I thought it was okay, but there were other things I could have done with my time and money.

While most people think the Communist organization KAOS died at the end of the cold war, it really went under ground. So, too, did the US organization devoted to stopping it, CONTROL. Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) is their top analyst, but he secretly desires to be an agent because they get all the glory. His idol is Agent 23 (Dwayne Johnson), not only the best, but a popular nice guy. But The Chief (Alan Arkin) won't promote Max because his extremely detailed reports are critical to the success of the agency.

All that changes when KAOS manages to attack CONTROL's main office. With all their agents' identities exposed, Max has to team up with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) to discover KAOS' plan. But Agent 99 is less than thrilled to be working with an obvious rookie who is a bit of a spaz. Can the two stay alive long enough for CONTOL to gain … well, control?

Fans of the original show will see glimpses of what they loved here, including some of the outdated gadgets that were cutting edge for the 60's. Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway do a reasonable job of bringing the classic performances by Don Adams and Barbara Feldon to mind while making these characters their own.

The tone of the movie is different, however. While the original had some action to it, it was a sitcom. There was more laughter at Max's bumbling antics than worry about who would win in that week's episode. Here, the suspense and plot points are ratcheted up a notch. This includes a climax that had me leaning forward. That's not to say that I didn't find the plot predictable. I just got caught up in it.

And there were times I laughed. Some of Max's antics here were funny, but the best of these were in the previews. I got the most laughs from Lloyd and Bruce, the two gadget geeks played to perfection by Masi Oka (of Heroes fame) and Nate Torrence. The gadgets they came up with were funny, but their reaction to the agents, especially those who wind up as analysts thanks to the attack, were priceless. In fact, those agents as analysts had the rest of the best bits in the film.

Most of the time, however, the movie attempts to wring laughs from sex jokes and bathroom humor. Not only did I not find these jokes funny, but they made me quite uncomfortable. While the original show was pretty tame (again, this was the 60's), parents need to take that PG-13 rating seriously. I sure wish I had.

Then there's the message the film is trying to send out. I think it might have been trying to skewer both sides of the political spectrum. But if that's the case, it didn't work. Instead, I was left confused about what, if anything, it was trying to say. Having said that, the villain gets one line that got the loudest laugh from me even if no one else in the theater laughed at all.

Earlier, I praised Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway. They aren't the only ones worth of note here. Frankly, everyone does a good job. They all milk the comedy they can from the script. And watch for a brief cameo by Bill Murray as Agent 19.

I wish I enjoyed all of this movie because I enjoyed most of the film. But for me, the sex jokes and bathroom humor made me wish I hadn't seen Get Smart.