MOVIE REVIEW: GET SMART

GET SMART

Four of Seven Cows

I really wanted to like Get Smart. Honestly, I can only torch so many movies in a row before I’m willing to give the most awful movie six cows just to prove I’m not an incorrigible grump. Well, I can’t really say that I didn’t like Get Smart, but I can’t really say that I did, either. How’s that for helpful? How about I just damn it with faint praise and call it “cute.”

                

 In the original television show Agent 86 was a well-meaning moron, and clever writing was required to have him triumph in each episode despite his ineptitude. Well, that Smart is gone. The new Maxwell Smart, played by the perfectly-cast Steve Carell, is, well, smart. Sure, there’s a fair number of funny gags, but he’s also an ace shot, an expert fighter, and a clever tactician. Is that really the Smart we want?

                

The problem with films that reprise old television shows is they’re often written by people who’s idea of creativity is to retread someone else’s old television show. There’s a lot of that about, and they’re not all awful, and Get Smart isn’t either. But watch some scenes from the television show on YouTube and you’ll realize how much of the show’s magic failed to make the jump to present day.

                 

As is too often the case, this updating of Get Smart seems intent on not hurting anyone’s feelings, fictional or not. For example, the original Agent 99, played by Barbara Feldon, was a bit of a charming dunce. Today’s Agent 99 is written as super-competent, sexy and initially disdainful of her pairing with Smart. Anne Hathaway does all she can with the role, but the dynamic is predictable and thus not very interesting.

                 

Dwayne Johnson, who has apparently realized that going by the moniker “The Rock” is a twee-bit silly, makes a good showing as Agent 23, as does Alan Arkin as “The Chief.” James Caan is good as the president – the astute viewer noting the slaps at the current occupant of the White House – and Bill Murray makes a brief appearance as the lonely occupant of a tree.

                 

Perhaps it’s the passing of the Cold War that robs Get Smart of it’s relevance and bite, or just the absence of Mel Brook’s zany brilliance. Either way, Get Smart is average, and earns four undercover cows fully equipped with trench-coats and hoof-phones.