Carrell, Hathaway mesh well in wit-filled "Get Smart"
9:24 a.m. Friday, June 27, 2008
"Get Smart" stars Steve Carrell, who inherits the role of Maxwell Smart, a part made famous by the late Don Adams in the old 1960s comedy series. Max is a detail-oriented and valuable analyst who dreams of being a field agent, but he has taken and failed the qualifying test seven straight years. He finally gets lucky on the eighth attempt and his dreams become reality.
Max gets disappointing news when his chief (Alan Arkin) explains to him that he won't be a field agent due to the fact he can't loose his best analyst.
Thing soon change when CONTROL headquarters is destroyed by the evil empire known as KAOS. When this happens, the Chief has no choice but to send Max to the field as an agent teaming him with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) to stop KOAS and their plan for world domination.
"Get Smart" is much funnier than I thought it would be. I'm a huge fan of Steve Carrell who puts his own mark on the character of Maxwell Smart. This is a nice bounce back film for Carrell, who had one of last year's summer duds with Evan Almighty. One of the strengths of the movie is the Carrell's great on screen chemistry with Hathaway, who's star continue to rise. She is a talented actress whose screen presence and talent has been quite evident.
The rest of the cast is quite good as well led by Dwayne Johnson (Agent 23), Arkin, Terrance Stamp (Siegfried), David Koechner (Larabee), and James Cann, who plays of all things the President of the United States.
I was impressed with the action scenes in the movie that are well choreographed. And, while the movie has lots of laughs, it also works well when it came to those moments. Some of my fellow critics have hated this movie, but I laughed hard often during my screening of it.
“Get Smart” doesn't try to recreate the much-loved series, and that's a good thing. I liked the fact they put their own spin on it. Perhaps longtime fans of the series wanted to revisit the past with this film, but they can’t really do that. "Get Smart" is, nevertheless, a funny, entertaining comedy.
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