Movie Reviews

Warner Bros. Entertainment

Review in a Hurry: In this mediocre spoof, two bickering spies (Steve Carell vs. Anne Hathaway) have to work together to thwart a crime syndicate's plan to nuke Los Angeles. Despite its classic-TV pedigree, Get Smart is just another big, dumb summer movie and should have heeded its title's advice.

The Bigger Picture: Hollywood needs to stop raiding the '60s TV vault, if all it's gonna crank out are overproduced, uninspired updates. First, the hyperkinetic Speed Racer sent viewers scrambling for antiseizure meds, and now this clumsy adaptation of the beloved espionage series stumbles more than its bumbling hero.

Granted, Carell is a smart casting choice for Maxwell Smart, the eager-but-inept spy made famous by Don Adams. He has the charm and comedic chops but needs better material than this lazily cobbled script, which never strikes the right balance of goofy humor and action-adventure.

Smart works as an analyst for the U.S. spy agency CONTROL but dreams of being a field agent. When the identities of CONTROL's spies are compromised, the chief (Alan Arkin, again in cranky mode) gives Smart his promotion and pairs him with fetching veteran Agent 99 (Hathaway). These crime-fighting partners jet to Moscow, infiltrate rival agency KAOS and discover a nuke-smuggling operation.

The flick kicks into high gear about 80 minutes in, when Smart and 99 return stateside and try to stop KAOS from bombing an L.A. concert hall, with the president in attendance. (That this invokes The Man Who Knew Too Much and Foul Play only underlines the story's unoriginality.)

Sadly, gags fall flat, one-liners lack pizzazz and the leads generate little chemistry. Sure, Carell is cute, and Hathaway looks sassy in multizippered leather jackets and slit-to-there gowns, but without snappier banter and greater sexual tension, their pseudo romance (even involving a flashback montage, ugh!) feels forced.

Get Smart's action sequences—especially an exciting skydiving chase and the plane-train-automobiles climax—might be enough to please some moviegoers. But those seeking more entertaining fare would be, well, smart to look elsewhere.

The 180—a Second Opinion: A few amusing swipes at the current administration and Homeland Security hint at what the movie might've been had more attention been paid to sharpening the satire. Paging series creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry...