Get Smart Could've Been Smarter
06/24/2008 00:00 Filed in: Movies and Television
I’ll cut to the chase: the timing of the dialogue was off. It lacked the quick wit of the original television series. The movie dragged a bit at times, especially at the beginning.
Part of the gag with the original Don Adams version is that he was NEVER self-aware of the fact that he was a bumbling idiot. This Maxwell Smart, played by Steve Carell, was often insecure and way too self-analytical. He was well... your typical Steve Carell character. Don’t get me wrong--I like Steve Carell, especially in The Office, but the character of Maxwell Smart in this version was obviously tweaked for Carell’s trademark style.
I’m certain the movie will be successful enough for sequels, but this just made me long for the original show. And I hear that the 1989 reunion movie, Get Smart, Again!, isn’t too bad (1980’s The Nude Bomb was made without Barbara Feldon, so it never felt complete to me).
There were some funny and even clever parts in this movie, but they seemed too spread out, and the movie could have been better. For instance...
The story explains that Agent 99 (played by Anne Hathaway) had disguised herself through plastic surgery to make herself look younger. Hathaway is 20 years younger than Carrell, so I guess they were concerned about the age difference. She showed him a picture of some blond that was supposed to be her former self. I don’t think it was supposed to be someone familiar, but if it was the joke went past me. But more importantly, I believe they missed a perfect chance to show a picture of the ever-lovely Barbara Feldon (the original Agent 99) and say that this was what Hathaway originally looked like.
Finally, I guess I’m becoming more of a prude as I get older, but it distresses me that someone felt the need to make what had originally been Rated-G type material and add enough sexual inuendo and language to end up with a PG-13 rating. The original was the kind of show that the entire family could watch together. The new Get Smart is not for children, and it distresses me that there were very small children in the theater in which we saw the movie.
This is growing trend that continues to bother me, but I’ll write more about that another day.