| 
| 
“Get Smart” is supposed to be funny, silly, entertaining and, of course, smart.
It’s none of these things. It’s quite dumb, actually, and certainly not funny. Or silly. Or entertaining. One supposes it will be a great shock to Warner Bros. that a ‘60s television sitcom doesn’t translate well in the new millennium, but this wouldn’t be the first time a studio executive proved inept at his job.
The TV show, which ran from 1965-70, was created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry as a comedy about government intelligence that playfully skewered Cold War paranoia. This movie, directed by Peter Segal (“50 First Dates”), has updated the setting but kept the familiar foe of the Russians, probably because anything Middle East-related is guaranteed to not make money.
The story plays like a James Bond comedy: Lots of gadgets, a girl, a villain, his menacing henchmen and daring, unrealistic action. A Soviet organization named KAOS steals nuclear material and plans to attack the U.S. and take over the world. Enter an American agency named CONTROL and Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell), who’s sent to Russia with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) to investigate. They find a bread factory that is the secret hideout of KAOS leader Siegfried (Terence Stamp). Everyone escapes unscathed, but Smart has to explain to the Chief (Alan Arkin) and Agent 23 (Dwayne Johnson) why the bad guys got away.
As the story unfolds and gets more predictable, you quickly get the sense that Segal is searching for laughs. Granted it’s tricky to find the proper tone in an action-comedy, but it’s not the balance between the two that’s off – it’s more the fact that the comedy isn’t funny. Toilet humor, fat jokes and spewing vomit are a few of the desperate tricks tried by writers Tim J. Astle and Matt Ember (“Failure to Launch”), but it’s all so tired and been done before that it fails to conjure laughs. With Carell you have one of the hottest comedians on the planet, and the best running joke you come up with is him shooting himself with darts. Ha, ha. Sigh.
The action is better, but not by much. It often feels like the action sequences were planned first and the story was written around them. This is probably why the pacing feels clunky and long at 116 minutes, but it doesn’t explain why the action, while boldly conceived (especially the finale and a mid-air fight), is executed plainly and lacks great thrills.
Fans of the franchise will appreciate subtle odes to the TV show, including Smart’s shoe phone, him driving a red Sunbeam convertible and quipping “missed it by that much” after an escape. Some may even recognize Bernie Kopell, who played Siegfried in the TV series. Most, however, will just be disappointed by this lame effort. When the beloved shows of TV’s yesteryear are dusted off and given a fresh face, and that face isn’t very flattering, it’s a sad day for all.
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
