Were we playing ‘The 25,000 Dollar Pyramid’, a game show from my childhood that probably has a movie version in production somewhere, it would go something like this:  Ummm.. ‘Dragnet’, ‘Starsky & Hutch’, ‘Bewitched’, ‘The Wild, Wild West’… Come on contestant because we could go on like this forever….

Uhhh… TV SHOW REMAKES THAT SUCK!  There will be wild applause as the contestant and the C-list celebrity hug as he celebrates his $25,000 prize which in 2008 will fill up his gas tank four, maybe five times.  And as I get to thinking about it out of all the TV show remakes, and there are probably well over fifty of them with more coming down the pike, the only ones that were actually really good were ‘Mission Impossible’ and ‘The Untouchables’, both directed by Brian DePalma and ‘The Fugitive’.  There were few TV show movie remakes that did manage not to suck and managed to be somewhat tolerable such as ‘Miami Vice’ or the ‘Charlie’s Angels’ movies but for the most part one has to wonder why they keep doing this.  Today we have funnyman Steve Carell dusting off Maxwell Smart’s talking shoe to give us the TV show remake of ‘Get Smart’ which at the very least we can say it didn’t suck.

Steve Carell isn’t your father’s Maxwell Smart as he is portrayed as more intelligent, more athletic and doesn’t get into his own way as often as the Don Adams version of the character, but Smart 2.0 is also more arrogant and has a bit more self-importance about him.  Maxwell isn’t a field agent yet for CONTROL but a crack intelligence analyst able to break down even the minutest conversations into credible information for The Chief (Alan Arkin) and the other agents, such as super duper spy Agent 23 (Dwayne Johnson).  Some stolen nuclear devices and a sneak attack at the CONTROL offices instituted by Siegfried (Terrence Stamp), who is the leader of the CONTROL arch enemy organization CHAOS, has compromised all the agents forcing The Chief to find out what the situation is using Maxwell, freshly minted as Agent 86 and the newly relocated Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) who has recently undergone facial reconstruction

surgery and as such her secret agent status is secure.  More importantly the facial surgery helps explain that the girl who was in ‘The Princess Diaries’ a couple years ago only LOOKS like she’s twenty years younger than ‘The Forty Year-Old Virgin’ because they’re like really the same age.  He only LOOKS like her dad.

Now the spy stuff and the romantic comedy stuff kick in high gear with all kinds of cool spy gadgets like mini flame throwers and exploding dental floss as the more ‘mature’ Agent 99 covers up for the shortcomings of the green Agent 86 with the two bickering all the while, but we can tell there’s a little spark under there somewhere.  Anyway, General Zod and those louts at CHAOS plan to blow up President Sonny Corleone and the city of Los Angeles with their stolen nuclear war triggers and Maxwell has managed to figure all this out but somewhere within CONTROL there is a rat working for the enemy who has turned CONTROL against Max.  Now the race is on to see if Maxwell can root out the rat and stop the nuke and get the girl before that clock ticks down to zero and L.A. goes blooey.  Actually there is no clock ticking down to triple zero and we do appreciate the removal of that played out plot device.

The only thing that we really care about after those credits start rolling at the end of the movie is whether or not we were entertained.  ‘Get Smart’ was more than funny enough to qualify as quality entertainment, but depending on your stupidity tolerance level some will be more entertained than others.  For instance my friend and colleague Jim McFarlin who was sitting next to me during the screening REALLY liked this movie and actually jumped once during one of the action sequences causing me to place my hand on his shoulder to make sure he was okay.  He’s like ancient by the way.  I on the other hand only found the movie marginally entertaining and were it not for Steve Carell I probably wouldn’t have found it entertaining at all, but Mr. Carell was almost as funny in this as he was in ‘The Forty Year-Old Virgin’.  With the exception of Alan Arkin, the rest of the cast seemed wasted with director Peter Segal being unable to fully exploit the charms of Dwayne Johnson or the confirmed comic abilities of David Koechner and Terry Crews who played a pair of asshole agents.  Even General Zod was somewhat wasted as I know he can do a better bad guy that what he was given to do here.  The action sequences were pretty lame too.

My main issue though was that Anne Hathaway and Steve Carell had absolutely no chemistry together and I’m thinking that has to be a function of their age difference.  There was more passion between The Rock and Steve Carell than Hathaway and Carell and though Ms. Hathaway is about as pretty as they come, surely there’s a hot actress over thirty-five they might have found to play Agent 99… but those eyes are devastating.

But it was funny and I did have a pretty good time watching ‘Get Smart’.  There’s not a lot left in the TV show movie remake tank unless they’re going to dust of ‘Mr. Ed’ or ‘That’s My Momma!’  I guess it’s hoping for too much to just have it end here.

Buds Second: Get Smart is not a well-acted movie, nor is it a well-directed movie. The storyline isn't
Particularly gripping, and the characters are only moderately interesting. The camera work in the action sequences certainly leaves a lot to be desired, as the movie seems to sruggle To figure out a good balance between being a comedy and/or an actioner.  Get Smart  is definitely not a masterpiece.

But here's the thing: Get Smart is a funny movie.  The writing is really clever, and the characters frequently find themselves in difficult positions that, as long as you are still Breathing, you will have to laugh at.  Steve Carrell does a solid, albeit modified, take On the Maxwell Smart character that was originally played by Don Adams, and there is enough Of the "shtick" from the old TV Show to satisfy.

This movie is worth seeing, particularly if you find yourself in a goofy mood and needing a laugh.