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Peter Segal, Get Smart

by Kathryn Durfee
06/24/2008

A product of the director of Nutty Professor II and the writers of Failure to Launch, Get Smart, the feature adaptation of Mel Brooks' zany 1960s comedy series, surprises audiences in that it actually works. The fact that it does, however, is more a result of clever casting than anything else.

Popular funnyman Steve Carrell brings his talents to the role of Maxwell Smart, a self-confident agent for CONTROL. Smart is currently tasked with parsing through international chatter, and though he produces lengthy and ultra-detailed reports, he sometimes misses the point. For example, he announces at a meeting that the Russians are eating muffins, a carb-heavy food, and therefore must be stressed, but misses the connection between the baked goods and the nuclear factory housed in the bakery. Smart seems destined to stay behind a desk until a rival agency KAOS ransacks the CONTROL office and all of the agents' identities are compromised. Smart is partnered with the savvy and beautiful Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway), whose identity is unknown due to some recent plastic surgery, and sent into the field to uncover the truth behind the weapons trading and nuclear bomb production.

Despite being a spoof, Peter Segal's Get Smart favors action over comedy and leans more towards one of the more recent Bond films than an Austin Powers entry. The character of Smart here is a departure from that of the original series; this film's Smart is a little more aware of his surroundings. He's not completely on top of it, but he does seem to have a better handle on things than did his predecessor, whose clumsiness and unawareness made him all the more endearing. But with Carrell in the role, how could you deny Smart the chance to grow? Carrell's ability to both deliver dry and sarcastic comments and to pull off pure slapstick comedy recalls some of the zany humor from the original series but also gives the film a contemporary feel. Fans of The 40 Year Old Virgin will delight in the scene in which Smart battles himself with a miniature crossbow. Even the most intelligent of viewers will find themselves laughing at his facial expressions.

Hathaway's Agent 99 appears cool and collected but shows range with an emotional side that hints at and eventually leads to a light romance between her and Smart. Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) plays Agent 23, the "it" guy of CONTROL. The hard-bodied actor plays well off of Carrell here; Johnson seems to enjoy the chance to goof off with such a great cast. Last but not least is Alan Arkin, who plays the Chief of CONTROL. Get Smart marks his second film with Carrell, and it certainly has a different tone than Little Miss Sunshine. Arkin, still quite spunky for an aging actor, has some of the best lines of the film and proves that you don't have to be young to be a good agent.

Some complaints may arise from Get Smart's move away from the series' zaniness to more of an action-packed thriller, but if a film can break out of its genre and succeed, why shouldn't it make the effort? Some laughs fall flat and there are a few cheap attempts at humor (a paintball to the crotch and that sort of humor), and we do have to put up with David Koechner (Anchorman, Semi-Pro, Drillbit Taylor, Balls of Fury, and here playing Larabee), but overall, Get Smart manages to be one of the smartest spoofs of James Bond to hit the big screen. I'm just glad they let Steve Carrell fill Don Adams' shoe-phones.

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