I just got back from seeing the movie, and contrary to NPR, I think the fact that Carrell changes the character of Maxwell Smart is what makes the movie work. If he’d spent the entire film doing a Don Adams impression, it would have been insufferable. Instead, he owns the character, and puts his own stamp on the basic idea, and the result is very funny without feeling like a cheap rehash, while also maintaining the spirit of the original show. I laughed my ass off at this film, and am probably going to pick it up on DVD when it comes out.
“That guy’s head looks like one of the statues from Easter Island!”
I saw it this afternoon with a friend, and we both agreed that it was hilarious. As we were leaving she told me, “You are buying the DVD when it comes out.” Both of us are pretty iffy on the subject of Steve Carrell as an actor, but the way he played Max Smart in this was quite enjoyable. Yes, some of the humor was juvenile, but we laughed at it anyway. And the references to the original series were well done without being overdone.
There was a reference, but not an appearance
In the movie Max was an analyst who wanted to be a field agent. In the beginning we saw his notes for the reports he wrote (which were always incredibly detailed and long) and one of them was about Mr. Claw/Craw. I suspect that when I get the DVD I’m going to watch this section more carefully to see if there’s anything I might have missed.
I saw it this afternoon. I am a big Get Smart fan and I am not a Steve Carrell fan.
I loved it, I thought Anne did a good job subtly throwing in many of the classic Agent 99 mannerism.
I don’t think Alan Arkin has ever not been funny and he was great.
I loved the last minute cameo of Hymie. He was mentioned in the beginning. The Bill Murray cameo seemed unneeded. It would have made more sense if they used him somewhere else.
He did in a sense, the name(s) are scribbled on his notes in the opening scene.
Another childhood fan from '65 here–I even have an autographed photo of Adams on his Shoe Phone. I went with lowered expectations, and they were met. They should have made it “Son of Get Smart”–Carell playing Maxwell Jr, or something. I could have enjoyed it more that way, I think.
The 2008 version lacks the innocence of the original–I guess that’s to be expected. More importantly, it lacks the charm. Perhaps they thought that bathroom humor, big explosions, and a violent death or two made the story more “current”. Maybe so…it didn’t work for me, though. Anne Hathaway did look good in that slinky gown!
I was at Best Buy the other day, and I saw the DVD collection of the few episodes that got made. Don Adams and Barbara Feldon take up most of the cover. Andy Dick has a teeny-tiny little picture stuck way up in the corner. Clearly, the marketers behind that DVD know attracts buyers, and what repels them.
[spoiler]Remember in the briefing when he made a point of saying that the bad guys were people too? Villainy was only the day job of the KAOS members. Control had to understand that in order to win.
Turning the big guy proved his point, and in the end, literally, it paid off with “hang time”.[/spoiler]
Oh, and I loved the dance scene, Smart’s choice of partner, and her parting shot to the other women at the end.
There are, I believe, three references to Maxwell Smart being an ex-fat guy.
The first:
When he gets his test results back, it’s mentioned that when he first started training for agent status, he was extremely fat. He tries to go down a zip line and pulls it down so far, he drags on the ground and stops. He does, however, lift his face up and say “personal best!” with such sweet happiness, it’s not a mean joke.
The second:
[spoiler]At the bomb maker’s soiree, as Agent 99 dances with the bomb maker, Smart asks a very fat woman to dance with him, thus insulting a group of skinny women who slighted him. The fat lady takes a little convincing and then remarks “you’re very light on your feet.” “I recently lost 150 pounds,” he answers. “Really? So have I!”
As a fat chick, I loved the dance scene.[/spoiler]
The third:
While in custody under suspicion of being a double agent, Smart has a nightmare that his guards bring him a birthday cake (there’s a previous joke concerning yellowcake uranium), smash it through the food gate in the door, and he starts devouring it, revealing that he’s returned to his original heft.
Personally, I thought it was really well handled and very humanizing. Not at all the usual, mean “fatty” jokes.
Oh, and as for the shoe phone?
Yes, it gets used. Pulled out of a museum exhibit and used to save the day.
We just saw it this evening and absolutely loved it. Loved hearing all the old, familiar lines (though I can’t recall, did he say, “I told you not to tell me that”?). And the music – god, that music is so awesome.
The casting was perfect, and I loved the cameos, especially Bernie Kopell. The only thing that didn’t ring true to me was the Chief. He couldn’t stand Smart in the original, and in the movie he liked and respected him. It was just weird.
Actually, that was the only part of the movie that I didn’t like. I thought it was gratuitous and overdone. I would’ve much rather seen her smugly fan herself with that girl’s fan as she walked by than the crass gesture she made. But the dance scene itself was awesome!
It was terrible. Carrell sleepwalked through the whole thing. The ex-fat-guy subplot was just a waste of screen time. No “would you believe…” jokes until like an hour into it. Carrell couldn’t even get the “missed it by that much” joke right. The Rock sucked the life out of every scene he was in, even though there wasn’t much life there to begin with. What should have been a 90-minute farce was a 2 hour pseudo action movie. They could have spent a lot less money and gotten a lot more movie out of it if the director had just let everybody go over the top. I mean, really. What are looking for from Get Smart? Goofy gags. They were sadly absent. The only bright spot in the whole thing was Anne Hathaway, who I have never cared for before, but who can clearly do straight (wo)man work.
I loved it. Definitely not the original–more action, more drama, less zany–but a good solid movie that was still 80% a Get Smart movie. And personally, I think that was a wise choice. The TV show format was fine for a 30 minute TV show, but for something that I’m going to watch for an hour and a half to two hours could use to be a bit more complex and story-filled.
Carell did sort of fail with “Missed it by that much.” But otherwise all the traditional jokes worked perfect, and I thought that the new jokes–like his history as an overweight guy–were well done.
I saw it on Friday and loved it very much. I’d been quite worried given the mixed reviews it was getting, but I thought it was funny and charming and, something very unexpected, reasonably tightly plotted – there weren’t a lot of throwaway gags, almost every beat got multiple references and things that were established early came back later.
I saw it and I laughed often. I thought it was true enough to the original while doing its best to make it on its own. Liked that Siegfried used a “We don’t ker-frickin-blooey in KAOS.” I understand they wanted us to take Siegfried seriously; I missed some of the old Siegfried looniness.
I enjoyed The Rock…excuse me, Duane Johnson (p.s., I don’t think the WWE owns the name, as was said earlier…if I remember correctly, Mr. Johnson can use the name if he so chooses, but he wishes to move away from the wrestler image and be viewed only as an actor. The big goon is a really bad, current WWE wrestler known as The Great Khali. His acting here was better than anything he has done for WWE - he is that bad.)
I didn’t mind Bill Murray. It pretty much matched what happened in the series, although he was a bit more of a sad sack than his series counterpart. That was a throwaway scene, but it was a running gag of throwaway scenes in the series.
