Get Smart

In the last couple of years Steve Carrell has rocketed to stardom. I remember laughing out loud at his antics on the Daily Show while he was just a "newscaster" there. When I heard he was going to be in the American version of the Office it was my one hope that finally a British Comedy would translate across the pond and sure enough for four years now Michael Scott has been the champion of soft hearted idiots who inexplicably hold positions of power over us in the world. Short of Ricky Gervais no one can make you feel more uncomfortable and awkward through a TV screen as Carrell. He is a master of turn of phrase, but as I have learned he has the incredible ability to pull of even the most crazy of slapstick scenes and suck every little bit of comedy marrow out of it. GET SMART taught me this.

I have watched the original series, a Mel Brooks creation, a few times and I always laughed. This was due in large part to the chemistry and skill of the main actors, Don Adams (the voice of Inspector Gadget) and Barbara Feldon. Don Adams is very much a spiritual brother to Carrell, his vocal tones and mugging for the camera showed a knack for making people laugh without taking it just that little bit too far. Carrell proves to be ideal casting here to the point where I simply cannot imagine anyone even trying to fill his shoe-phones. A particular standout during the film is a scene in an airplane bathroom in which Max is trying to shoot through zip cuffs around his wrists with a small crossbow in his Swiss Army Knife. The scene is alluded to in the trailer but is far more protracted in the film and completely hilarious.

Anne Hathaway certainly covers the Agent 99 attractiveness of Barbara Feldon but feels a little out of her depth here. I think for me it was more that she was trying to keep up with a guy who really knows comedy and she is known as a well-rounded actress and not so much for comedy. She is certainly meant to be the straight person here, but is almost to straight, too stiff to fit in this universe of KAOS and CONTROL. Alan Arkin is another spot on bit of casting playing the chief. His performance reminded me a bit of his too-nice police captain from So I Married an Axe Murderer and I see that as a good thing. He had some good laughs. Dwayne Johnson (the Rock) is very good in this as the awe-inspiring Agent 23, the guy Max looks up to who is actually nice to him unlike the other jerk field agents played to a hilarious degree by David Koechner and Terry Crews who torment the lab guys like frat boys picking on the nerds. Terence Stamp plays the villain, his sidekick the fat guy from the Borat movie. Stamp plays the role completely straight and it works very very well. At times you wonder how it is that CONTROL (the good guys) has managed to keep KAOS (the bad guys) at bay all this time. And there is a very sweet cameo at the end that made me cheer as I think this guy is one of the funniest guys out there in the comedy world right now.

The directing is what makes this movie work as well as it does. Peter Segal has directed movies you know, but not ones that you remember for being unique directorially (Tommy Boy, 50 First Dates, Anger Management) but here he does something that to me is very impressive, he makes a film that is just as much action as it is comedy and neither are watered down. There were a couple of scenes in this movie that had me very close to tears I was laughing so hard, and there were some very good explosive actions scenes as well. In the climax there is actual tension and concern for the characters, and somehow Segal manages to inject some truly funny gags into it.

The long and the short of it is that this movie turned out to be better than I thought it would be and I actually had pretty high hopes for it. Candace laughed out loud more at this movie than I have ever seen her laugh at a film. I walked out of the theater satisfied and still chuckling at some of the bits while feeling very impressed. I would love a sequel, I would love to see what happens next. This movie deserved to kill Love Guru at the box office because it worked hard to make me laugh. It was tight, well done, and as much as I wanted to use Max's catchphrase as a way to review the film I can't say it "missed it by that much".