Talking Into Your Shoe is Kind of Unsanitary
Get Smart
Starring: Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway
By Robert Patrick
[Originally published East County Herald]
To be honest; I have never seen the original Get Smart television series. I couldn’t name one actor from the program and, most terrible of all, I’m afraid that I don’t care to learn. This, however, doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy the film adaptation of the show. In fact, the modern day revival is quite good as a stand alone feature.
Steve Carell plays the bumbling man-child known as Maxwell Smart . A government hired operative for an organization simply known as CONTROL, Smart is known to his peers as agent 86. Anne Hathaway, also an agent, albeit a much quicker, deadlier one, is teamed up with the deadpan, dimwitted Smart character. The unlikely duo end up having to quell – what other than – a Russian plot to blow up the world, kill the president, and whatever other shenanigans that stereotypical Russian villains do in films these days (and in the 1950s).
As one would expect, explosions litter the screen, lightning fast quips zing out of our characters mouths, and gunfights are turned into acrobatic works of art. This movie isn’t something made by Jean-Pierre Melville by any means, but it does make for some rather inoffensive entertainment.
All in all, Get Smart, as most people would expect, is stuffed with clumsy scenes of Smart acting like an idiot savant. As repetitious as these scenes are, they are funny enough to work. This, aside from the new Chronicles of Narnia film, is quite possibly the best film out right now. So, unlike Maxwell Smart, you wont shoot yourself in the foot if you see this film. Sorry for that last line.
3/5