Get Smart
Thankfully, director Peter Segal didn’t do a retro remake. Get Smart has been given some character tweaks, whilst leaving intact, many of the gags and punch lines that will be familiar to fans of the original television show. But does it work?
As with his role in the American version of The Office, Steve Carrell has managed to take a character and make it his own, rather than impersonating the original. Maxwell Smart is quite intelligent in this version (he starts out as an extremely thorough Analyst who desperately wants to be a Field Operative), and we definitely see a more sensitive side to him.
Alan Arkin is brilliant as The Chief: the head of the demoralised Control agency, eager to prove to other government officials that Control is still relevant and effective, and not the bunch of superfluous has-beens that the other agencies consider them to be.
Terrence Stamp has thrown the ham out of the window, and opted instead for a chilly Siegfried (the original Siegfried, Bernie Kopell, makes a brief appearance). Anne Hathaway as 99, is not happy to sit back and let Max take (if you’ll excuse the pun) … control. She’s feisty, capable and proactive. Bill Murray has an amusing little cameo as the wretched Agent 13, and Dwayne Johnson deserves a mention in a role that, at least initially seems to be parodying action roles he has played in the past.
As you may have gathered, the strength of this film lies in its cast. With less capable actors, or actors with less presence, Get Smart would not be as good as it is.
But that’s not to say it’s especially good. This viewer would have preferred more laughs than action and pyrotechnics, and although there are some laughs, there aren’t quite enough. Or perhaps they’re just not clever enough. Sure, there are the political quips, and government agency in-jokes – the gems of the original series, but they could have afforded to pack far more of a punch.
In fairness, it would be practically impossible to recreate the wit and charm of the original series, whose appeal was due in part, to the sense of propriety governing how people in a professional setting dressed and behaved at the time, and the respect with which authority was treated. People are far more relaxed now. In the series, characters looked and seemed very staid, but said and did things that were incredibly silly. Essentially, it was a tongue in cheek show about political threats to America. One of the funniest running gags, was that the comparative working conditions between KAOS and Control, were more important than the fight between good and evil. The series also mocked government agencies during the Cold War at a time when secret services were cloaked in revered mystique, rather than the more cynical attitudes towards them that people have today. It was therefore highly irreverent, more powerful and much more amusing.
So, was it worth doing a remake?
This film is likely to do well, and the introduction of Hymie at the end of the film hints at a sequel. Good thinking, 99?