GET SMART!

[mrbasehart]

Mel Brooks loved the movie

Richard Donner also loved Superman Returns, so that's no indication.

Mel Brooks no doubt gets a cut in the film...he has a vested interest in it doing well no matter how bad it might be....

As far as Cartell needing a new agent...the agent isn't writing and directing these things.  And with Cartell supposedly being the "new hope" of comedy you'd think he'd have enough muscle to make these movies better - if he was the talent everyone says.

Some people are just great on TV and mediocre on film (David Duchovny, for example).

I've just been nervous about why The Rock is in this...and featured so prominantly.

who's the rock?

The most electrifying sports entertainer there ever was.

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

Mel Brooks loved the movie

Richard Donner also loved Superman Returns, so that's no indication.

Mel Brooks no doubt gets a cut in the film...he has a vested interest in it doing well no matter how bad it might be....

As far as Cartell needing a new agent...the agent isn't writing and directing these things.  And with Cartell supposedly being the "new hope" of comedy you'd think he'd have enough muscle to make these movies better - if he was the talent everyone says.

Some people are just great on TV and mediocre on film (David Duchovny, for example).

I've just been nervous about why The Rock is in this...and featured so prominantly.

who's the rock?

The most electrifying sports entertainer there ever was.

The Scorpion King

[esoobaC .T bocaJ]

oh, you mean Dwayne Johnson

[Tripe]

That's the bunny

[Courtney]

oh, you mean Dwayne Johnson

I don't know why that made me laugh as much as it did, but it did.

[Petey Wheatstraw]

oh, you mean Dwayne Johnson

The Rock? Vanilla Ice? Ross Perot? Who are these people that you speak of? I'm so cornfused!

[Doktor Sleepless]

I don't like Steve Carrell.

[esoobaC .T bocaJ]

oh, you mean Dwayne Johnson

The Rock? Vanilla Ice? Ross Perot? Who are these people that you speak of? I'm so cornfused!

indeed

[Courtney]

oh, you mean Dwayne Johnson

The Rock? Vanilla Ice? Ross Perot? Who are these people that you speak of? I'm so cornfused!

Yeah, and what's a Star Wars? 

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

oh, you mean Dwayne Johnson

The Rock? Vanilla Ice? Ross Perot? Who are these people that you speak of? I'm so cornfused!

Yeah, and what's a Star Wars? 

You're breaking my heart.

My old, arterially clogged, overused heart.

[doggans]

My sister and I just got back from seeing it. Steve Carell was pretty good, and there were some amusing jokes. Also, a lot of nice homages to the show, mostly in the opening credits--Mr. Big, the Claw/Craw, the portable Cone of Silence, the "Ship of Spies" marquee, etc. As a fan, it was nice to see those things, although I did feel a bit pandered-to.

The main problem, aside from the cookie-cutter plot and the gravitation toward juvenile humor, was the failure to accurately adapt most of the characters. Agent 99 goes from being the tough-but-supportive sidekick to being an extremely narrow cliche. Larabee is no longer a sweet-but-naive office assistant, he's just Todd Packer, playing Todd Packer. Siegfried, despite starting off with a "This is KAOS, ve don't ____ here", is just a one-dimensional intimidating villain with no personality. The only character that stayed 100% true to the original show was Agent 13, played masterfully by Bill Murray for about fifteen seconds.

Also, Patrick Warburton was perfectly cast as Hymie, but we didn't get a chance to see him do anything really Hymie-like.

One of the complaints I've seen other reviewers mention is that they made Max too smart. I don't think that's necessarily true. Even in the original series, while he was often clueless, klutzy, and oblivious, he did frequently come up with solutions and figure things out. No, the real mistake they made with Max was making him too insecure, too self-pitying. The original Maxwell Smart was convinced that he was the greatest spy in the world, and nothing would change his mind. This Max spends the first fifteen minutes of the film whining about how he'll never get to be an agent.

Probably the best moment of the film was Bernie Koppell's cameo. It's only a shame they didn't think to just have him play Siegfried.

All in all, worth a few chuckles, maybe worth a rental.

[esoobaC .T bocaJ]

Great, now it's gonna be just like The Incredible Hulk, where everyone in the audience is laughing at references to the show, and I'll feel like I'm missing out

[PlayMSTie]

Saw it this afternoon. I'm not going to give any real spoilers, so I won't bother with the spoiler tags (or not much). On the whole I enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun when it stayed in the mold of the classic show. But it did sag a bit whenever they tried to modernize/throw in drama. Doggans is right about 99. We really don't need to sit through angst about her personal life, and we don't need her bickering with Max. Not every couple can or should be Tracy and Hepburn; Max and 99's harmonious relationship worked fine for the show -- was one of its trademarks, in fact, if I remember correctly. They should have left her "tough but supportive" as Doggans says, but they probably thought the supportive part wouldn't be modern enough or something. [Soapbox] I love how Hollywood thinks that women have to be witchy in order to prove they're strong. [/Soapbox] She does get there gradually, but she should have been there all along.

But she does have one great moment where she yells at a villian, "You think I'm not feminine?" and kicks him in the face.

However, Carrell is pitch-perfect as Max. He really holds the whole thing together and makes it work. And he and Hathaway and co. pull off some great bits of physical comedy. I'm not a person who thinks every comedy needs to be a groundbeaking work of art, so I had fun. 

[gbeenie]

I thought it was decent, but the main thing that struck me was that it wasn't particularly Get Smart-like. Aside from a few obligatory (and sometimes amusing) references, the movie could have just as easily have been marketed as a generic espionage spoof, and been just fine (it's certainly funnier than any execrable Friedberg/Seltzer product).

Verdict: Funny, but it didn't show much of the sensibility of the TV show upon which it was based.

[Tripe]

Incidentally anyone going to see this?

I think they might be interesting companion pieces.