For evidence of how the big-screen
version of TV's Get Smart went so terribly awry, look no further than the classic
"Cone Of Silence" gag. The Cone Of Silence is a special apparatus in which
people can discuss highly sensitive, top-secret information without the
possibility of being overheard; trouble is, the device works so well that they
can't hear each other, either. On the 1960s show, created by up-and-comers Mel
Brooks and Buck Henry, the cone was hilariously unwieldy, a Plexiglas
monstrosity that descended from the ceiling and encased the participants. In the
movie, the cone is just a malfunctioning digital effect, which betrays the
clunky analog charm of the original, and in the process completely misses the
joke. In fact, there are many stretches when it's easy to forget that Get
Smart is a spoof;
it's more like a third-rate James Bond with pratfalls.
Given Steve Carell's gift for
amiable buffoonery, there's probably no one better to step into the role of
Maxwell Smart, the bumbling Inspector Clouseau-like secret agent immortalized
by Don Adams. And yet Carell can't capture the inimitable tenor of Adams' voice
and delivery, which leaves only his willingness to look like a fool. After the
evildoers known as KAOS infiltrate his spy agency CONTROL, Max gets a
long-sought-after promotion from nerdy analyst to active field agent in an
effort to bring KAOS' ringleader (Terence Stamp) to justice. A humorlessly
humorless Anne Hathaway plays his reluctant partner, the sexy Agent 99, and the
two head off to Chechnya to thwart KAOS' nuclear ambitions.
For some unfathomable reason, Adams'
original Max has been reconceived here as a considerably more competent
operative, a brilliant analyst who can also kick a little ass when 99 isn't
rescuing him from various scrapes. How is that funny? Carell will do anything
for a laugh, and as with his character in The Office, Max's obliviousness to other
people and to his own ineptitude plays to Carell's strengths. But Get Smart is too slick by half, and there's
little in the script to support the star but a series of warmed-over spy games
punctuated by pain humor and strained banter with Hathaway's snippy, scolding
99. In updating a beloved TV show, the filmmakers have gone out of their way to
excise everything that was fun about it.