Review of Get Smart (2008) by Migz P — 03 Sep 2012

Entertaining spoof that does for modern spy movies what the original TV series did in its own era. It does seem to go back and forth between action-drama and action-comedy way too wildly, but it never went entirely off the rails.

Carell is smart (pun intended) to not imitate Don Adams, but rather to play his Max fresh. It certainly redeems the awful Evan Almighty. Similarly, Hathaway plays 99 as the kind of tough and witty woman that Barbara Feldon's never really got to be.

Decent action, decent story, and only a few passing nods to the original series keep things moving at a brisk pace. Johnson is mostly a throwaway in his role, while Arkin tries to give some life to the chief.

Stamp manages to chew up the scenes he gets, maybe too much so. Masi Oka steals every scene he's in. Some wacky blink-or-you'll-miss-it cameos are nice, but don't make or break the movie. All in all, it won't be winning any big awards, but it didn't really fail in its mission either.

Solid entertainment, but the series is better. One problem arose in the second half: they clearly deleted some kind of sex scene between Max and 99, as it is referenced repeatedly during the climax of the movie (pun intended again).

Not that it ruins the movie, but it was a distracting omission given the ramifications for the characters and plot from that point forward. Worth a rental if nothing else.