"Get Smart" (2008) - Movie Review

Not seeing the “Get Smart” TV series did not stop me from enjoying the “Get Smart” film, with Steve Carell as Agent Maxwell Smart. Smart is working for covert intelligence team called CONTROL which has an arch nemesis of KAOS. CONTROL is clearly run by the US government while no specific claim is taken for KAOS. But who cares as their enmity blows up for a plot seen in serious and spoof film of spies. “Get Smart”, forgive me for the eventuality that the film actually is smart.

Maxwell Smart is an intelligence analyst eyeing for the field agent job forever. His role model and an effective field officer Agent 23 (Dwayne Johnson) supports him while his three numerals pages of reports are annoying sleep pills for other bullying colleagues Agent 91 (Terry Crews) and Larabee (David Koechner). Smart is not an idiot as the stereotype runs for spoof James Bond films. He is diligent in his job of analysis and deduction. He knows information and how to process it. The thing which goes wrong for him is the misfortunate matter of luck. True that he gets couple of instances due to his idiocy but every one gets that moment of foolishness.

Making him an effective operator actually brings laughs due to Carell’s nice charm with a loss of touch to his naivety. Director Peter Segal uses the talent astute and gives the correct lines for each of them. The villain Siegfried (Terence Stamp) and his assistant (Ken Davitan), Chief (Alan Arkin), nerd buddies of Smart Bruce (Masi Oka) and Lloyd (Nate Torrence) and especially Anne Hathaway as Agent 99 are placed with clean as a whistle screenplay.

When viewing an action film’s stunts with car chases, escape tactics and landing zones, often we determine the flaws of logic. Quite obviously it would not add up but the Hollywood has considerably cast its spell over the audience such that those logics are forgiven. Still sometimes the line gets crossed and insults the audience. In well executed films such as The Bourne series, time is not given to think about those rather the pure adrenalin of a temporary believability surpasses that stressful truth, logic. This film accumulates the possibilities of those failure and not comically but genuinely fails it which is funny and acknowledges the intelligence of the audience.

I once read the favourite quotes of actors which are shown before a film which had Steve Carell saying that he has cornered the market for being idiot. Indeed he has the juice for it with a sweetness required for a likeable person out of it than to be bored or to dislike the character. In Maxwell Smart he is zealous and well equipped as an agent but at the same time has the awe struck factor of being a rookie and sustaining the attractiveness and appreciating for his new partner Agent 99. The joke is generated out of his unaware unluckiness than an actual act of being a jerk as Mike Myers does in Austin Powers (I do like Powers in pieces than as a whole character).

“Get Smart” treats the story with seriousness and it plays for its good a lot of times. The plot has the same routine but it goes on with a purpose revealing a good suspense. And Alan Arkin is easily able to be funny as he did with a foul mouth in “Little Miss Sunshine”. He is trusted with the remote observer of the stunt in the climax and generally that part has the danger of being incredibly flat and an awkward indulgence of a kind to demise the scene. Arkin is in control of that and he becomes the instrumental character in being a commentator of the comedy which happens far from his place.

Another fact which makes the film effective from start till the end is the stunts. They are used as a blatant display of exhausting material in a comedy film and hence we sleep through those. The care of choreographing it as an interesting, funny and a thrilling fact in the film projects how the team worked on it with gravity for its content. Trailers I have learned are great spoilers but that is the marketing strategy for inviting the viewers. I have come to dislike it completely since it robs the pleasure of surprise and pure cinematic experience. For “Get Smart” it did a lot of it and it worked favourably for the film this time. Because as the trailer gives Maxwell Smart as a complete unfit for being an agent, I went underestimating Maxwell and his skill did surprise me and it was fun to see a spoof spy not being inept at his job. But he has cheery dumbness as any human and fortunately it happens in a comedy film for not casting catastrophic results.