Get Smart

A (slightly) smarter-man's Austin Powers, Get Smart finds Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, and Dywane Johnson (who has, by this point, successfully shed the moniker "The Rock" (though what good that will do only time will tell)), all agents of an assumedly-defunct government spy agency, CONTROL, thwarting the plans of an evil terrorist organization called KAOS, who are hellbent on having some nuclear fun-time.

Carell portrays a smarter, more competent version of Smart than Don Adams. Carell may have molded the character a little bit more to his tastes, but he's still noticeably cut from the same thread as the old Maxwell Smart. The humor in this movie often relies on Carell-isms, his yell, funny noises, and goofy awkwardness on full display. And about half the time, it almost works. Even so, toward the last half-hour of the movie, the charm begins to fade, and it starts to feel a bit too long.

Anne Hathaway surprised me by being much better in her role as Agent 99 than I expected. She did a respectable job acting older than she seemed to be, and she showed a good amount of restraint in her character, not over-acting, but excelling in her minor emotions and expressions, acting...I don't know, realistically?

The plot isn't excessively original or engaging, culminating in the attempted assassination of the president (who is coincidentally dim and easily-amused), which has been used many times before, and will be again. This movie also uses many of the same gags that previous spy movies have employed, like pee jokes (almost identical to the one in Austin Powers) and shoe phones.

This movie has some funny parts, some good jokes, some decent action sequences. Overall, it's one more brick in the wall of Spy-Comedy movies, and I can't really say that it sticks out further than the others. I can say that I cracked a few smiles, maybe chuckled, and at some points I was amused. Fans of spy movies will most likely be entertained. I think in this case, that might be good enough.

4/7