Review: Get Smart

I never saw the TV show, but I definitely want to now. Especially now knowing it was the spawn of Mel Brooks and some other dude. But that has no bearing on the movie which is a clever spy movie with laughs. It never reaches hilarious comic levels and seems to lack satire that I’ve heard the original show had, but it’s still pretty good.

Maxwell Smart (Steve Carrell) is a analyst for a spy organization who desperately wants to be a field agent and when the evil equivalent of his agency compromises all other field agents he gets promoted and is partnered with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) who just had cosmetic surgery and is therefore not compromised either. So they must stop the evil organization of its nefarious plot of terror and extortion all while having sexual tension.

This may be odd, but I felt Get Smart worked better as a clever spy flick than it did as a comedy. Not to say it failed in the comedy area, because it was indeed funny (though some of Steve Carrell’s “Yes. Yes. No.” sense of irony is a tad trying sometimes). It just seemed to be about the spying first and humor second. Maybe this how the show did it or whatever. And I’m not saying this is a bad thing because it still makes a good movie, but I was expecting it to be more satirical. In fact only the war room scene achieved this and it was certainly the funniest part of the flick.

But a humorous and clever spy flick aside, it still had its flaws mostly in writing. I may be nitpicking on a simple movie but Agent 99 not wanting to start a relationship because she’d been hurt before is a little easy, though the cosmetic surgery angle added an interesting subtext. Also jokes that Smart was once fat were sprinkled throughout, which were tiresome, because they weren’t funny. And there was a completely unnecessary double cross. But like I said I’m probably just nitpicking a simple film.

Some sort of conclusion where I say I wouldn’t mind recommending this movie.

Rating: 6.5/10