Be Smart — Don’t See Get Smart
Get Smart hits so many wrong comedic notes it’s as if it’s playing the piano in boxing gloves.
A few minutes into the movie, when (a version of) that briskly sinister title theme kicks in and Maxwell Smart heads for the sliding doors you’ll be happily ensconced, thinking: why mess with the classics? But shredding a classic is exactly what the filmmakers set about doing.
The latest big-screen adaptation of the 1960s TV spy comedy, originally conceived as a mashup of James Bond and Inspector Clouseau, completely misunderstands Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell), who in the original was arrogant but childlike, incompetent but unerring. He would say something utterly absurd with ironclad bravado and a stone face, then turn out to be right.
The new Smart is just a whiny nerd who is constantly being beaten down, often by his partner Agent 99 (a brittle and sarcastic Anne Hathaway, who will make you long for the airy adorableness of Barbara Feldon). In their first encounter, 99 literally knocks Max down on the sidewalk, like a middle linebacker.
Carell seems at a loss for ideas. He can’t imitate Don Adams, who played the original role with such dapper daffiness and got many of his laughs just by speaking in an officious quack (modeled after William Powell’s in The Thin Man). Carell doesn’t do much of anything except project a general air of frustration and weakness. When called upon to issue the series’ signature catchphrases (“Would you believe…,” “Missed it by that much,” “Sorry about that, Chief”) he sounds sheepish, except on one occasion midway through, which was the only time in the entire movie that I laughed.
Chasing some stolen nukes in Russia (the chief villain is Terence Stamp, aka General Zod in Superman II), Max and 99 go on a series of adventures that aren’t so much parodies of other movies as blurry copies. There’s a midair parachute chase like the one in Moonraker, starring a hulking actor who looks exactly like the guy who played the steel-jawed assassin in that film. There’s also an interlocking-laser-beam field like the one in Entrapment and a dance scene at a black-tie party a la True Lies. Instead of parodying these scenes, director Peter Segal (50 First Dates) simply restages them with some cheap har-har element. Example: when Max dances, it’s with a really fat girl. (There are also three different scenes during which we’re supposed to laugh for no other reason except that Carell is shown in flashback in a fat suit.) Perhaps the worst idea was stealing an idea from the men’s room scene in Austin Powers, which only serves to highlight how much zanier and more original that spoof was.
The script roams desperately around a large ensemble of unnecessary characters in search of a laugh (Masi Oka, of NBC’s “Heroes,” and Nate Torrence, a sort of Jonah Hill clone play two superfluous young nerds who keep dropping in to clog up the movie). It turns out they are on hand solely to prop up interest in a spinoff movie that is being concurrently released on DVD.
Only in scattered moments is the satiric silliness of the original Get Smart even visible, such as when Smart asks the new character Agent 23 (the Rock), “How was the assassination?” or when Smart meets an agent who is stationed inside a tree. That guy — the sap? — is played by Bill Murray, but instead of playing it straight while discussing the next mission he whines about being stuck in a tree, which ruins the joke.
One key to TV’s Get Smart was that it was deadpan — the characters never knew they were being funny. But the film is full of joshing that’s so witless it sounds like the dull banter of actual locker-room meatheads: fellow agents call Max “Maxi-pad” and “Maxine.” After a mishap at a bakery, Smart and his fellow spies are derided as “the fabulous bakery boys.” The whole movie is as strange and clunky as that attempted joke. To put it another way, this is the Aughties equivalent of the unspeakable Tom Hanks/Dan Aykroyd version of Dragnet. The characters cringe at their own failure to be funny, and so do we. As Max tells 99, “Not much of a laugher, are you?”
Correction: A previous version of this piece incorrectly stated that Rob Corddry was in Get Smart.
Get Smart
Directed by Peter Segal
Starring: Steve Carrell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson, Bill Murray
1 star/ 4
111 minutes/Rated PG-13
Ouch.
“jvon:
Ouch.”
***************
Really!
There hasn’t been a remake of anything I’ve ever liked, and this one goes straight to the top of the I’ll Never Go See It list.
Well, this has been a 20 death spiral. The only thing keeping Hollywood alive is a form of senility: long term fond memories crowding out short term amnesia about recent bad movies. Its not that they don’t make good movies; they just don’t make very many of movies at all and most of them are terrible.
Why do they keep making this crap? Because you can’t get any money for anything that hasn’t been tested as marketable. Even the actors have to remind them of someone they once knew. The talent gets homelier and less talented every year. The producers, writers, and directors are usually somebody’s nephew. Actually, I think the real surprise is that it isn’t worse.
I was really looking forward to this movie. I don’t need your pity. Then I saw the HBO “First Look.”
It’s a remake of “Johnny English.”
It’s been a while since we had two really shitty blockbusters opening simultaneously (Get Smart & The Love Guru… may the worst movie, uh… win?
Just like all those other lame tv inspired movies. It’s either that or a comic book or a video game for today’s movies’ inspiration
Wow, somebody in a comedy actually said “Not much of a laugher, are you?” ?!??
That’s just asking for trouble.
You’re absolutely right that a comedy like Get Smart MUST be played straight. If they can’t do that, then they shouldn’t have made it. And now it’s ruined so it will never be made correctly.
It’s not surprising. It seems that Carrell’s talent doesn’t extend beyond his annoying character in “The Office”.
While many people are focusing on the long, slow, death of the newspaper industry, the movie industry is quietly slipping beneath the waves.
Funny, I thought I was the only person who thought the 1987 Dragnet movie sucked.
I think the problem is, the producers/directors are trying to attract 21st century youths to the old classics by injecting current juvenile humor and character constructs. In doing so, they destroy the very things that attracted us to the original.
I’m not surprised. I’m trying to think of a single 60′s TV show that had worked as a modern movie.
Nothing comes to mind. It always seems to me that the directors and writers don’t really get what it was that was funny about the original. They also seem to feel that they must adapt to the current sensibilies and add sex or profanity or scatalogical (sp?) humor.
That is one of the reasons I haven’t paid to see Speed Racer yet. I loved the show as a kid. I have the DVD’s, and even as a 43 year old adule, the show is still fun.
But someone had to turn it into a neon adventure and completely, and unnecessarily rewrite Speed’s back story. Stupid.
Pete, that’s just another example of the arrogance of the Hollywood crowd. “We loved Get Smart as kids/young adults, but the kids/young adults of today are not as smart/cultured/refined/subtle/nuanced/etc. as we were so we have to re-tell it in simple language for them.” Of course, given that we run out education geared to the lowest common denominator why shouldn’t our entertainment do the same?
Rob Corddry’s not in this movie. I think you have him confused with David Koechner.
Nate Torrence broke a little bit BEFORE Jonah Hill, but I guess his portrayal of the staffwriter on “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” begotten from “Chubs” in those David Spade credit card commercials didn’t stick in the zeitgeist
One merely had to look at the pap that was Robert Heinlein’s seminal work, “Starship Troopers” made into film, to realize just how arrogantly incompetent Hollywood writers are.
Thank you Mr. Kyle Smith for not fawning all over Steve Carrell.
Is it just me, or is there some kind of gay attraction thing going on for Steve Carrell (I’ll add Will Ferrell here too)? I just read a glowing review of “Get Smart”.
I’ve noticed that movie reviewers (Mr. Smith excepted) can’t seem to praise Carrell (and Ferrell) enough, no matter what movie they are in. I practically feel the tingle in their legs when they describe their performances. No matter what crap movie it is.
IMO it can’t be their acting. Something more? Sexual? Just a thought.
“I’m not surprised. I’m trying to think of a single 60’s TV show that had worked as a modern movie.”
*The Fugitive*, *Star Trek*, *The Addams Family*, *Mission Impossible*, *Maverick*, and *The Brady Bunch* (yes, it started in the ’60s).
I thought it was funny … I was entertained, which is all I could ask for.
Thanks for the heads up. It reminds me why I didn’t go see one of my former favorite comedians, Steve Martin, kill my fond memories of Peter Sellers in Blake Edward’s Pink Panther series.
I wonder what’s next to get mutilated next? Hogan’s Heroes?
Gee Mr. Waller,
so the gay mafia is behind all those glowing Get Smart reviews?
Javelin,
The rumor a few years back was that Julia Robert’s popularity was due to a large lesbian fanbase. Something about her being the lesbian equivalent to Brad Pitt. Not being a lesbian, I can’t speak on that. But as a man, I never understood Robert’s appeal. Not a good actress, bad roles, odd looks, not really very pretty.
Yet they always called her “America’s Sweetheart”. Who’s sweetheart? None of my male friends ever found her that appealing either. It kind of made sense about the lesbian appeal.
Now we have Carrell and Ferrell. Not great actors. Not that good looking. Bad movies. Yet, somehow their popularity remains high. It just reminds me of the Roberts thing in reverse. When things don’t add up there are often strange reasons. Do you really think it so outlandish that the gay community might have it’s own set of movie idols? Just food for thought.
I don’t even know what the Gay Mafia is, but if you don’t think there is such a thing as group mindset, then you are too PC.
I loved the series in the 1960′s and I liked this movie quite a lot. So did my daughter who has never seen the original show. It’s not supposed to be Hamlet – just a funny movie, which it is.
“the guy who played the steel-jawed assassin”= Richard Kiel, who was reprising his role from “The Spy Who Loved Me”.
Cheers
Sheeeesh, grow a sense of humor. I just saw the movie with my hubby and 17 year old and we laughed till our sides hurt…as did everyone else in the theater. Gimme a break, not much of a laugher, are you?
*The Fugitive*, *Star Trek*, *The Addams Family*, *Mission Impossible*, *Maverick*, and *The Brady Bunch*
Fugitive – eh, not too bad, I guess.
Star Trek – well, I liked ST:TOS, but lately the franchise has been growing thin.
The Addams Family – em, no.
Mission: Impossible – are you trolling me? They destroyed my memories of the series. Jim Phelps, the villian? Come on!
Maverick – meh, not too bad.
Brady Bunch – I’d a lot more fun watching “NOT the Brady’s XXX” or whatever the porn knockoff’s called, is what I’m thinking.
All in all, yeah, not much in the way of 60s (or in fact, any other decade’s) series being properly made into a movie. Only MASH managed it, and that’s because the series was based on the movie, and not the other way around, so, not really.
AngieBaby,
Many years ago at an Air Force base in Thailand, I saw “What’s Up Doc?” It was a painful experience of the side-splitting nature. The entire audience was caught up in the movie.
Years later, I watched the film again in a more sedate environment, swearing to my wife that this was absolutely the funniest movie ever. Everything about it seemed flat, and it left my wife wondering what was in the water in Thailand. I suspect the missing component was an audience infected with laughter; that is, once some threshold was crossed, the movie’s humor level didn’t matter as much, we just laughed (and laughed and laughed) until it hurt.
I’m a big fan of the original TV shows. They were classics.
If you went into this one expecting Don Adams and Barbara Feldon, of course you’d be disappointed.
But then, answer this: how well did the “Get Smart” followup series do? (The one where he’s head of CONTROL.)
This was another in a long line of “based on…” movies. That Buck Henry and Mel Brooks were behind this one ought to tell you something. It’s a funny, well-paced movie.
Alan Arkin as the Chief should have been an inspired choice, but the director evidently told him to walk through his lines. He wasn’t nearly as good as Stamp’s Siegfried. Now that is the very model of a modern-day villian. And he only used the “… we do not …. here” line once.
“… so we have to re-tell it in simple language for them …” Do you mean like Siegfried’s line in the last third, where his henchman complains about the loss of Hollywood celebrities, and he replies sarcastically, “Yes, we’ll really miss their political acumen” (or words to that effect)?
“The Addams Family – em, no.” A resounding Yes. You must surely be thinking of that awful “Munsters”.
The less said of the movie “Mission Impossible” the better. For one thing, the director proudly admitted that he never saw the TV series.
Another thing about remakes: that seems to be the only thing Hollywood can do any more. Remakes of old TV shows, remakes of old movies (why not just re-release the old ones?), and remakes of comic books. A few of them aren’t that bad, so long as you’re not expecting “Dr Zhivago”.
Another thing about this remake: the original series was meant for the small screen, so the locations and plots were fairly small and localized. The big screen needs a big arena, worldwide locations, trains, planes and Segways. The movie gave us that bigger arena.
Anybody know if the original “Get Smart” is available?
“Yes, we’ll really miss their sharp political advise” – was the funniest line in the movie.
For us, the only time the movie worked was when they stuck (not very often, unfortunately) to the original 60′s series shtick – ie Smart got things done by sheer luck and happenstance, inspite of being, well, an idiot. By imparting intelligence to Carell’s Smart, they ruined everything that was funny about the series.
That said, my 15yo kid loved the movie.
Steve Carill is an annoying, overrated, bad actor…no wonder the liberals love him and stupid shows like The Office.
I don’t know what you are talking about, that movie was hilarious!!! Of course, it was different from the original series, but that’s because it’s more suited to these times. But that’s what’s so good about it! Just enjoy it as a movie.