Triple-Feature Part III: Get Smart

Get Smart
Directed by Peter Segal
Released June 20, 2008
Seen June 29, 2008

I’ll first note that I’ve never seen the original television series which spawned this remake. I will also note that I don’t consider an extensive homage to be meritorious just for being a throwback (see my recent review of the new Indiana Jones movie). A movie should be able to stand on its own two feet without relying on support from constant references to source material. I don’t know whether this movie does that; all I know is that it certainly doesn’t succeed on its own merit. There’s not nearly enough action or comedy here to make up a movie, and thus the experience is rather unfulfilling. I’m using the first two “Rush Hour” movies as my template of effective action-comedies, where the entire cast is funny but there is drama occasionally and the characters make it work. While this movie shouldn’t necessarily be compared to those, it’s clear just how little everything works. The plot is a joke, and the action scenes, instead of being clever, are cheesy and stupid. Steve
Carrell is given far too little to do, and the comic relief is left to a giant brawny sub-villain and geeks played by Masi Oka (Heroes) and Nate Torrence (Studio 60). Terry Crews (Everybody Hates Chris) and David Koechner (The Office) are hardly funny, and The Rock, who I’ve seen give decent performances in bad movies like “Walking Tall” and “Southland Tales”, is also given poor material. I’m beginning to suspect that Anne Hathaway was very actually a good actress. I think it was the youth factor that made her role in “The Princess Diaries” work, and I had my doubts about her considerable talents when she appeared in a small role in “Brokeback Mountain” just a few years ago. She displays absolutely no chemistry with Carrell, and while I can see what she was going for with the role (Eva Green in “Casino Royale”), she fails miserably. The movie is additionally saddled with three actors way past their prime, who for the most part seem to be scrounging for roles just as poor as
these the past few years (with a few notable exceptions, such as “Little Miss Sunshine”) – Alan Arkin, James Caan, and Terence Stamp. This may be a throwback to the old days, but from what I’ve seen here, I don’t think I want to go back.

C-