Review of Get Smart (2008) by Matthew K — 07 Aug 2013

I have to admit I quite liked this film, it's not absolutely fantastic, and won't, and didn't, win any top awards, but it was a decent film with some decent laughs. I've never seen and I wasn't even aware there was a TV series before this, although I think I do recognise the whole corridor, multiple door thing from one of the couch gags from The Simpsons. What a world we live in.

Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway on paper are pretty good actors. Carell is a good comedy actor, and Hathaway is a good dramatic actor. So when the two cross genres, mainly Carell into dramatic, he doesn't convince. But that's the point, it's supposed to be funny, and Smart being way out of his depth and absolutely clueless is the funny part! As a romantic pairing they don't work too well together in my eyes, something doesn't click, I don't quite know what, but they just don't match.

Alongside the two leads is a rather strong selection of faces, The Rock, Terry Crews and David Koechner, and of course Alan Arkin and a surprising cameo fro Bill Murray. Oh, and my favourite person ever, Patrick Warburton. The comedy of the film is mainly a much more deadpan styling, rather than doing anything for a cheap gag, and with Carell they have a great man for the job, very nerdy and out of sorts, and fits the role well. The hilarity is furthered with Alan Arkin as the feisty for his age Director of Control, and Terrence Stamp, the leader of KAOS. I think Alan Arkin provided the funniest moment of the film, and made me laugh harder than I have in a good few weeks, towards the end when he is nearly impaled by a swordfish, hilarious! Bill Murray provides a nice little cameo as well, in a tree. The true old school agent. But because I find Murray so hysterical, it was a well enjoyed cameo.

Spoiler alert upcoming... The Rock is in a role which is just tailor made for him, the bad ass hero, everyone loves him, men want to be him, women want to be with him, yadda yadda yadda, cliche, cliche, cliche, but he's a good guy to boot! But when it's revealed that he's actually a baddie, it's quite unbelievable. He's spent all of his life being a good guy, so I find it quite hard to take him seriously as an antagonist. Saying that though, he'll be used to playing the pantomime villain with his wrestling career.

As far as it goes as a film, it's a pretty generic action come comedy film, with a fairly generic shady organisation with a sinister name wants to destroy the world plot to accommodate some laughs. I summed the film up in my head in thirteen words; 'someone wants to take over the world, with some yucks along the way.' For my relative positive feeling towards it, one thing brings it down for me, one scene. A scene involving a very overzealous air marshall and a whole load of misunderstanding. Unbearable. They simply aren't funny, and I can't get my head around awkward comedy. I have the same problem with the scene in Anger Management. We get it Hollywood, America has a problem with terrorism and have to mock the problem to get past it, but do us a favour? At least make it funny. Painfully stupid, seemingly unending awkward unfunniness. Anyway, rant over.

Now that I've got that off my chest, the film ends on a high, like this review! (More upbeat, not necessarily in quality, again, like this review!) In the last few minutes there are plenty of laughs, even with bum humour to get you to laugh, which it does, to trick you into remembering the film being better than it actually was. That is very, very cynical of me though, as I did like the film!