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Missed it by that much

A pointless comedy in search of an audience
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By Steffen Silvis
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
July 16th, 2008 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Failing the Don Adams Screen Test, Hathaway and Carell as 99 and 86.
Get Smart


Directed by Peter Segal
With Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Alan Arkin, Terence Stamp, Dwayne Johnson, James Caan, Ken Davitian and Bill Murray
Besides the fabled porn feature Gilligan’s Bi-Land, should we be expecting a big-screen family version of the castaways soon? What about Mr. Ed or Welcome Back Kotter? From My Mother the Car to That’s My Mama, there seems to be limitless choices for enterprising Hollywood script committees when raiding the TV Land dump bins.
But the list is narrowing. Cineplex screens will soon be tuned to blockbuster versions of I Dream of Jeannie, The A-Team, Dallas and a live-action The Jetsons, as, presumably, producers (and they alone) were ecstatic with the results of Nicole Kidman’s Bewitched, Claire Danes’ Mod Squad, The Dukes of Hazzard and the live-action Scooby Doo.
The Czech Republic was spared Underdog, but we do have Get Smart confronting us. The original material, for those born after the last days of disco, was a borsht-belt spoof of James Bond films, wherein a CIA-like agency, CONTROL, battled against the nefarious KGB-ish KAOS. Created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, Get Smart was a weekly guide to the mishaps of CONTROL Agent 86, aka Maxwell Smart (played by Don Adams), a nudnick spook who managed to somehow win the day, usually through the efforts of his beautifully mod colleague, Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon). It was a healthy dose of shtick, though the joke was ultimately stretched thin.
In turning this humorous half-hour show into a full-length film, the studio failed to ask the most obvious question: Why? To whom is this picture pitched? If the target audience is surviving viewers from the heyday of sitcoms, it wouldn’t pay to play it as ’60s send-up, as the Austin Powers films have sufficiently filled that need. If the film is aimed at post-Cold War generations, what possible hook could be offered to lure them in?
In typical Hollywood fashion, the film version of Get Smart is for everyone and, finally, no one. The humor is aimed at the lowest tastes in the house (ably represented by Coke-fat teens), while nostalgic nods to the original are laboriously checked off (the Cone of Silence, the shoe phone) for those who once watched it. The strangest element of all is something that neither Brooks nor Henry would have ever countenanced in their series: schmaltz. Within this epic of cheap jokes and elaborate action scenes that out-Bond Bond is a blossoming tale of passion between 86 and 99, backed with heartfelt tinklings from a baby grand just off.
Cinema’s sad sack, Steve Carell, has been drafted to fill Adams’ ringing Florsheims, though they hardly fit. What made Adams’ Smart funny was his baseless belief in his own skills as an agent, oblivious to the mayhem that accompanied his every move. Carell’s Smart is just as clumsy, but this poor, former fat boy (yes, there’s a fat-suit flashback) radiates anxiety when he fails at a task. He wants so desperately to do a good job and have people respect him. Laughs galore.
With the Berlin Wall down, it’s assumed that KAOS has vanished into the birch woodwork of Mother Russia. However, KAOS mastermind Siegfried (Terence Stamp) is still at work, shipping nuclear weapons to various despots on his friendster list, so that he can ultimately blackmail the United States. After the CONTROL headquarters have been sabotaged by KAOS operatives, and the identities of its agents compromised, the Chief (Alan Arkin) finally promotes Smart as a fully fledged agent, pairing him with crack CONTROLler 99 (as embodied within the nasal stylings of Anne Hathaway).
Soon 86 and 99 are off to hunt down Siegfried in Russia. En route, they have their first encounter with KAOS when Siegfried’s Mongo-like henchman, Dalip (Dalip Singh looking like Richard Kiel’s Jaws from Moonraker), attacks them after the three jump from a plane (ditto Moonraker). After discovering clues about Siegfried’s network at the Minsk-Pinsk Restaurant in Smolensk, our intrepid agents attempt to stop Siegfried while allowing their hearts to speak as one. The requisite triumph of good comes complete with requited love and a puppy.
Director Peter Segal, having gifted the world a juvenile remake of the bitter comedy The Longest Yard, applies his Cainish mark to a once-clever sitcom. His Get Smart has no tone, no balance or visible purpose, other than to raid wallets. Explosive action scene is followed by a rank joke, which is then punctuated by the longing looks from another of Carell’s stock sexually retarded men. By comparison, Gilligan’s Bi-Land is probably a monument to coherency and focus.

Steffen Silvis can be reached at ssilvis@praguepost.com


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