‘Get Smart’: ‘Oh, Max!’ Why not stick with comedy?

Published 3:41 pm Thursday, June 19, 2008

Even if you were never a fan of the ’60s TV comedy “Get Smart,” I think you could sense that something is off in the new movie adaptation. I will resist the temptation to say they “missed it by that much,” because they missed it by a lot.

“Get Smart” the TV show was created by two of the era’s premier funnymen, Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, with a great role for comedian Don Adams. It spoofed the era’s craze for spy movies while bestowing a series of gizmos and catchphrases on an unsuspecting America.

A spoof is difficult to sustain over the course of a 110-minute movie, and the new “Get Smart” doesn’t really try. This is a straight-ahead and sentimental comedy, and looks much more like a regular summer blockbuster (complete with climactic car-helicopter-train chase) than it should.

Don Adams’ old role of Maxwell Smart, Agent 86, is taken by Steve Carell, who does the part in a naturalistic style. You will recall, I hope, that 86 is employed by the U.S. spy service CONTROL, much to the exasperation of his long-suffering Chief (Alan Arkin).

Since the end of the Cold War, CONTROL has been clandestine, but the forces of KAOS are still in play. Max is thrown into an almost nonexistent plot that leads to a factory in Russia where they make yellowcake uranium, and possibly also yellow cake (and that’s one of the movie’s few clever ideas).

Agent 99 is played by Anne Hathaway, and the filmmakers have decided that the 86-99 relationship should be an antagonistic one — another thing that makes “Get Smart” like any other summer movie. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Terence “Kneel Before Zod” Stamp are in there too.

Max gets to say his signature lines — you know, “Sorry about that, Chief” etc. — exactly one time apiece. Carell looks as though he really isn’t enjoying the process. A couple of funny cameos along the way perk things up briefly.

But director Peter Segal, who has a list of misfires including “Anger Management” and the “Longest Yard” sequel, hasn’t settled on the proper tone for the picture. The humor falls flat in the semi-realistic approach, and disappears in the big action sequences. Big movies don’t have to exactly replicate the TV shows they’re based on, but they have to be funny. “Get Smart” isn’t.