Get Smart (Thumb UP)
This week, we saw Peter Segal’s “Get Smart” (Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Alan Arkin, Dwayne Johnson, Terence Stamp, David Koechner, James Caan, and very briefly Bill Murray, Patrick Warburton, Larry Miller, Kevin Nealon, and Bernie Kopell). A movie like this really requires two separate reviews: one for casual film-goers, and one for die-hard fans. So here goes.
For casual film-goers, with only a passing acquaintance with the original TV series, this would probably come off as a light-hearted spoof with moderate levels of humor. It starts off kind of slow and dumb, but builds up some cleverness and speed as it goes.
Carell is good at playing the sometimes-bumbling but sometimes-brilliant spy, and Hathaway is excellent as his icy-cool and hard-as-nails partner. Together, they have to find and stop the KAOS plot to blow up the world. Not as funny as the Naked Gun type movies, but better than most of the other crap that comes out. And it does have a bit of a heart, with three-dimensional characters that you can truly care about, even though it is basically a farce.
Okay, now for the geeks. First of all, allow me to tell you of my credentials. Not only do I remember loving and faithfully following the series on television (and I’m talking about network TV in the sixties, not that Nick At Night rehash), but I carry around to this day a Sunbeam Tiger key fob in honor of Maxwell Smart (and if you don’t get that reference, why are you reading this section of the review anyway?). What’s more, I live in a townhouse on Larrabee Street, and one of the main reasons I had to buy it was because of the street name! Okay, Get Smart Geek enough for you?
As for the movie, I of course went in with lots of expectations. They were mostly satisfied. I never like a film adaptation that is just a remake of the original, so I like that they mixed it up a bit. For one thing, Max was transformed from his TV version (a veteran dumb-but-lucky field agent) into a brilliant office analyst who wants to become a field agent. He eventually gets his wish, and we get to follow along as he learns to adapt to his new role.
Agent 99, instead of the younger agent with occasional flashes of inspiration, here is reworked as the more experienced agent who is assigned to show Max the ropes. Also, The Chief has been transformed into a much feistier character, and a pretty damn good field agent in his own right.
I actually made out a list of running gags and catch phrases form the TV show to bring with me to the theater, so I could keep track of how many they used. I wasn’t expecting a lot, but I was wrong. They used almost all of them, and more! The way they worked them in was very clever.
For example, how do you fit a shoe-phone into a plot when cell phones are a dime a dozen, and much smaller? Well, Max finds himself stranded with no clothes or equipment, but manages to steal a Cold-War Era Control agent suit out of the Control museum, complete with shoe phone.
I wondered if they would use any of the old sixties cars. They used them all. Max steals the Sunbeam Tiger out of the same museum. But it runs out of gas almost immediately. So he steals the next car to come along: a Karmann Ghia. He is also yelled at by a passing motorist (Bernie Kopell!) driving an Opel GT. Very clever.
A new high-tech version of the Cone of Silence also appears, with predictable results. And of course the series of slamming doors, ending with the phone booth, are all cleverly updated.
The opening sequence in Max’s apartment is a brilliant montage of memorabilia that went by far too fast for me to memorize it; I’ll have to see the movie again if for that scene alone. I do remember a signed photograph of “The Craw,” among other things.
Anyway, to sum things up, I thought the movie was incredibly funny, and very true to the needs of us Get Smart Geeks, but at the same time giving us new ideas to enjoy and not being merely a rehash of old concepts. And of course it ends with a setup for a sequel: The introduction of a new agent named HYMIE.
