While there were smarter ones and those that were more hip, far funnier, and certainly more memorable back in the 1960s, few TV shows had as cool of an opening as "Get Smart." Airing from 1965 to 1970, the series began with a shot of Don Adams as secret spy Maxwell Smart walking down a hallway with a confident and slick stride while barely missing a series of metal doors closing around him before ending up in a phone booth and then disappearing from sight when the floor dropped out.
Accompanied by its signature score, that opening, all of the cool gadgets (remember the shoe phones?), and Adams' mostly deadpan take on the clueless and bumbling but somehow successful secret spy (best known for a number of oft-repeated catch phrases) made the show quite popular among kids of my generation.
Although it's no classic (despite Mel Brooks and Buck Henry creating it), the show is something of a sacred cow to those who grew up with it. Thus, talk that Hollywood was going to raid entertainment's past once again and turn the show into a big screen movie seemed like yet another bad idea, dredging up memories of the likes of "The Beverly Hillbillies."
Director Peter Segal -- working from a script by Tom J. Astle & Matt Ember -- keeps the hallway walk and phone booth entry to CONTROL headquarters, and some of the catch phrases and gags from the old show have also been retained. Yet, just as phone booths have pretty much disappeared in today's world, so has much of what made the original entertaining.
Namely, that means clever satire has been replaced by easy jokes (including some bashing of President Bush -- courtesy of James Caan doing a thinly veiled impersonation -- that feels several years late to the game) and a number of stunt-filled action sequences that are busy but ultimately rather empty.
The biggest change, however, is in the portrayal of the lead character. While Steve Carell is the obvious physical choice for replacing Don Adams, the pitch of the performance is quite different. Whereas Adams' was something of an American kissing cousin to Inspector Clouseau as melded with James Bond, Carell puts a more human spin on the character. Sure, there's the goofy shenanigans and cocksureness, but his version of Smart also has feelings, desires and disappointments.
It's an interesting and seemingly surefire tactic (since the actor has had so much success making his previous characters so endearing), and obviously a smart decision not to try to recreate Adams' version (as comparisons would likely not be favorable among most critics who were alive way back when for the first time around -- today's kids probably have little to no notion about the original show).
The problem is that the material doesn't back up Carell's efforts. Beyond the easy and low-brow comedic efforts (the misunderstood bathroom comments bit clearly isn't novel), the general plot is nothing to write or phone home about (shoe use being optional). When CONTROL HQ is ransacked by KAOS agents, the boss (Alan Arkin taking over the Edward Platt part) has little recourse but to turn analyst Maxwell Smart into the secret agent he's always desired to be.
He's teamed with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway updating Barbara Feldon's character for the 21st century), but their chemistry is far removed from that which occurred in the show. Rather than her being Smart's adoring partner, the relationship here is that of bickering and antagonism, and that material -- like so many other elements -- feels dated and trite.
Terrence Stamp is wasted as the lead villain (although you still gotta love that voice) and Ken Davitian (the sidekick in "Borat") doesn't fare any better. The bigger guys make more of an impression, however, with Dalip Singh instantly reminding one of Richard "Jaws" Kiel from the Bond films of the '70s, while Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson again proves he has decent comedic chops.
Alas, he isn't used enough, which also holds true for Brooks and Henry who are around just as "consultants." Perhaps if there had been more input from them, the jokes would have been better, the characters funnier, and the stunts more in line with that of spy parody rather than the full-blown action sequences that dominate the third act.
Yes, there are a few laughs to be had here and there, but the filmmakers unfortunately didn't follow the advice of the title in making sure this big screen update was smart enough to warrant its existence. "Get Smart" rates as a 4 out of 10.
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