Review: Get Smart

Get Smart

Opening Date: 06/20/2008

STUDIO: Warner Bros.

TRAILER: Trailer

ACCOMPLICES: Official Site

The Charge

Missed it by quite a bit.

Opening Statement

Co-creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry gave us a spy sitcom for the ages, spoofing The Avengers and Man from UNCLE-defined genre while laughing in the face of Cold War fears. Like most television comedies of its day, the jokes grew tired and the stories ran out of gas by the time the series concluded its five season run. But by the time Don Adams hung up his shoe phone, we were left with some great characters and visual imagery that remains strong to this day, thanks in part to the diligence of Nick at Nite.

Fast forward 35 years and Hollywood producers are feverishly mining every piece of TV nostalgia they can get their collective hands on. Bewitched was a bust, Rocky and Bullwinkle got frostbite, The Dukes of Hazzard never should have left the family farm, and Lost in Space should have stayed lost. The list of misses far out weigh the moderate hits found in the Addams Family, The Fugitive, and the Star Trek franchise (even number great, odd numbers awful). But we all know the movie business never learns from its past mistakes, and as punishment we are offered up summer “blockbusters” like Get Smart.

Facts of the Case

Maxwell Smart (Steve Carrell) is CONTROL’s best intelligence analyst. In fact, he’s so good at what he does — generating 800 page reports that detail the most intimate movements and emotions of the men and women who pose the greatest threat to America’s security — that even when he passes his field agent exam, The Chief (Alan Arkin) can’t afford to promote him. But when an unexpected attack threatens the lives of every top agent, it’s up to Max and a recently reconstructed Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) — who underwent massive plastic surgery following a compromised mission — to defeat KAOS and save the world.

The Evidence

Get Smart is one of those movies you sit through and when lights come up ask yourself, “Why did they make this?” There is nothing criminal about it, but the collective missteps that occur along the way sink the picture, and you end up walking away with nothing gained.

Let’s take the script, for example. Screenwriters Tom Astle and writing partner Matt Ember earned their stripes writing gags for standup comedian-centric television series like Grace Under Fire, Titus, and The Drew Carey Show. Their only other screenplay was for the much maligned Matthew McConaughey / Sarah Jessica Parker relationship comedy Failure to Launch. Now, this isn’t to say past experience predicts or defines current or future work, but in this particular case it holds true. Get Smart plays like a series of comedic set pieces strung together by an overarching plot that is neither original nor provides any sort of payoff whatsoever. In fact, the whole thing seems a bit schizo. Is it a comedy that uses action to propel the characters’ journey? Or is it an action picture that uses humor to temper its intensity? Unfortunately, it waivers back and forth so often you give up trying to figure that out.

I appreciate the fact that they chose not to remake the series for the big screen, but put in enough subtle references to the original to make fans smile — Bernie Kopell, Agent 13 (Bill Murray) in a tree, Hymie (Patrick Warburton), Fang, the shoe phone, the cone of silence, and even Max’s Sunbeam convertible. I also enjoyed how they attempted to grow the characters from their comedic origins — Max is one of those genuinely good guys who always seems to finish last, and 99 is a woman who has never been truly understood for the person she is beyond the career. But that is about the extent of my appreciation for the film. Much of it is hollow, contrived, and brutally long. What studio got it in its head that every movie should now be two hours long, and why does every filmmaker seem to be taking this as a mandate? They could have shaved off a good 20-30 minutes and nobody would have noticed.

The performances themselves are relatively solid, but falter under ridiculous circumstances and poor dialogue. Steve Carell does a nice job of evolving Max from the bungling hero Don Adams created into a sweet albeit naive guy who just wants to do the right thing. But the stuff this script gives him to work with is pitiful. There’s an entire sequence in an airplane lavatory where he repeatedly shoots himself with miniature crossbow arrows… and it goes on forever. Ember and Astle must have missed class the day they taught the comedy golden rule of three.

Anne Hathaway integrates a few of Barbara Feldon’s trademark voice patterns (“Oh, Max”) during what is a genuine portrayal of a woman out to rediscover who she really is after losing the only identity she’s ever known. Alan Arkin gets some classic moments playing The Chief, but everyone else seems to be filler — Dave Koechner, Terry Crews, Ken Davitian, and James Caan as a George W inspired President. Terence Stamp sleepwalks through the film as Siegfried, a role made delectably screwy by Bernie Kopell in the series. Stamp has more to offer with considerably less screentime in Wanted than he does here. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is intended to have more significance as the CONTROL superstar, Agent 23, but the way it’s written is probably the most unforgivable aspect of the script. It’s as if Astle/Ember lifted it right from some 1970s screenwriting text book. While in a bit of direct-to-DVD cross promotion, Masi Oka and Nate Terrence’s roles as CONTROL’s tech/weapons geeks Bruce and Lloyd get to spin off into their own feature-length film — Get Smart’s Bruce and Lloyd Out of CONTROL (get it?) — arriving on store shelves July 1. For the studio’s sake, Get Smart better be a huge box office success, or their going to be stuck with a whole lot of product on their hands.

Now, I’ve put a lot of emphasis on the script — and deservedly so — but Adam Sandler’s pal, director Peter Segal (The Longest Yard, Anger Management), ultimately shoulders much of the blame for the film’s disjointed ineffectiveness. It’s a beautiful looking film, playing on a world stage while being shot in America’s backyard (Montreal), but good looks don’t hold up when there’s nothing behind them. His pacing is nonexistent, resulting in a meandering cake walk from one set piece to the next. Worst of all, you could care less about the outcome and by the time it finally arrives it’s so ludicrous you just want the credits to roll so you can leave.

Closing Remarks

While treating the characters of this classic series with respect, Get Smart ultimately shoots itself in the foot by offering up a lame story that’s poorly executed. Sure, you’ll notice elements of Alias and James Bond peppered throughout (in fact the whole WWE’s Great Khali playing a Richard Kiel knockoff is downright blatant), but when there’s nothing for the audience to invest in, two hours watching fluff can be a bit painful.

Guilty as charged.

The Verdict

6/10

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