Director: Peter Segal
I am not exactly sure what to make of "Get Smart," but somehow it works. Though neither part of the half-action/half-comedy was particularly good in its own right, the two are balanced in just the right way so that the whole thing manages to have some appeal.
A few of the comedy bits had me laughing out loud, but some were so cheesy by contrast that they seemed to suck the humor out of all the nearby scenes. The action scenes were all good enough to keep me entertained, but they paled in comparison to the stuff coming out of today's true action films.
Despite these handicaps, the film had two major saving graces that make it well worth going to see.
I was a huge fan of the series. One of the things that the film does particularly well is capture most of the important elements of the series 's albeit minus some of the hectic feel 's without simply pulling the entire text from the old TV shows. The only real difference seems to be that Max has gained a few IQ points.
The other thing the movie has going for it is good acting. Steve Carrell was clearly the ideal choice to play Maxwell Smart, the clumsy but lucky secret agent who 's much like the movie itself 's always pulls through despite numerous failures. Carrell possesses a natural kind of charm and humor that allows him to fit in perfectly with the character.
While it was clear that Carrell would put in a top-notch performance in the lead role, the real surprise of the movie was the performance by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. He has come a long way from his beginnings as a professional wrestler, and it seems he gets better and better with every script he takes on.
In "Get Smart," Johnson plays a smooth, popular and highly skilled secret agent known only as Agent 23. Agent 23 is the ultimate field agent and clearly embodies everything that chatter analyst Maxwell Smart wishes he could be.
Smart scores exceedingly well on his field agent test exam but is prevented from getting a job in the field because of his highly detailed reports, which a character known only as "the Chief" (Alan Arkin) claims are too valuable to lose.
This is, until CONTROL 's the super-secret spy agency where the protagonist is employed 's is attacked. Smart shows up to work one day to discover that the office is in ruins and the identities of all of the organization's field agents have been compromised.
By necessity, Smart is given a promotion and becomes Agent 86. He is then teamed up with the beautiful and deadly Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway), who remains unknown to the enemy because of a recent bout of reconstructive plastic surgery.
The two agents are tasked with thwarting the evil schemes of KAOS, the enemy spy agency that is the sworn enemy of CONTROL. KAOS had been gathering a nuclear arsenal for some nefarious purposes, and Agents 86 and 99 have to travel to Russia to find out why and to stop the organization from fulfilling its plans.
While in Russia, the two agents learn more about the mission and each other, and start to develop a budding romance. They are almost caught and killed numerous times during their misadventures in Russia.
The ending held a pleasant surprise, one that was actually difficult to predict, a rare feat in Hollywood today.
Overall, the movie may not be spectacular as a comedy or outstanding as an action film, but through a few lucky breaks it combines the two elements to make a movie worth seeing.
Showing in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania.
