A Part Steve Carell Was Born to Play
mother of 16 year old son, Movie Reviewer, a believer of fate
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JUN
22
2008
The main characters of the original Get Smart series remain, just with new actors behind them. Steve Carell, master of dry humor in his own right is playing Maxwell Smart, Agent 86, and does well enough with it, that he almost made me forget Don Adams. Almost. Anne Hathaway takes over the part of Agent 99, and while her looks certainly match that of Barbara Feldon, she doesn't seem to match up well with Carell. They play it like they have chemistry, but even one of Maxwell's crafty gadgets wouldn't be able to detect that heat. She also seems to miss some of the campiness that Feldon had. Alan Arkin, on the other hand, as the Chief, has great chemistry with Carell, but we already knew that from their time together in Little Miss Sunshine.
New to the cast is Agent 23, played dryly be Dwayne Johnson, known in another life to us moviegoers as The Rock. His casting is dead on for his character, an agent who plays everything by the book, yet doesn't have the emotional stability to not staple papers to the bald-headed agent that isn't nearly as successful as he is. Joining the team are a couple of electronics experts that delight in developing new gadgets for the agents such as a device that throws out a ray of electricity that is supposed to produce a "cone of silence" for the agents' privacy, and a Swiss Army knife that includes a flame thrower and minature harpoon. You can only imagine how great these items are in the hands of someone as bumbling as Maxwell Smart.
The story has been modernized, taking Control Headquarters from the 1960s to the present day, but for some unknown reason, Maxwell and Agent 99 are sent to Russia to look for a hidden nuclear warhead factory, as if we were stil in the Cold War. Maxwell's previous position as analyst for Control helps him out a great deal here, as he and Agent 99 compete with each other to be the agent that brings down the Russians. While 99 dances with the Russian they are after to get info, Maxwell dances with a large woman, which at first seems really funny, but somehow becomes somewhat touching as he strives to show that she isn't any less deserving of honor, just because of her size.
The real star of this show, though, is the dry humor written for Carell that is in the same style as what was written for Adams. Comparing himself to James Bond, he doesn't think Bond ever had to walk among rats and poop, then notes that he's even walking among a rat riding on a poop in the sewer current. The only other actor I can think of that could deliver that line so straight while making us laugh would be John Gielgud playing Arthur's butler. The ending of Get Smart has the most unusually creative use of a suicide hotline banner I've ever seen.
Get Smart is the first movie I have gone to in awhile where the mostly adult audience was laughing throughout the film and clapped at the end. It was just a great piece of entertainment that brought something new to the table, while at the same time honoring the old, and that's really hard to come by for a movie created around a forty year old telelvision series.
Get Smart is recommended by LauraBelle
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