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Last Updated: Jul 25th, 2008 - 11:21:42 |
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| Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson and Steve Carrell star in "Get Smart." |
“Get Smart,” the 1960’s television series with the doofus special agent, works by being a funny parody of U.S. “intelligence” operations. And, with that definition, the new movie version of the series gets a passing grade too.
Though there are some wooden moments, there are far more moments that are clever and that update old cold war references to today’s so-called “war on terror.” The summer movie thing is about action, humor and fantasy and, in its own oddball way, “Get Smart” has all three—plus a serious nod to nostalgia with its campy intro, featuring vintage theme music and slamming metal doorways that lead our secret agent to his secret government office.
Comedic actor Steve Carrell (“The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” “Dan in Real Life,”) has enough jokes, quirks and painfully awkward clumsiness to fill two hours as Maxwell Smart, the nerd-turned-special agent who doesn’t know that he is still a nerd. The combination of clumsiness and summer “action” leads to the type of frequent self-injury that may not be my taste in humor but is funny to fans of Adam Sandler movies and, for you old-heads, “The Three Stooges.” As a special agent, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson also adds to the action of the film. He can catch a fly in his bare hand and deliver a beat down while still being a prettyboy. Comedic actor Terry Crews (“Street Kings,” “Who’s Your Caddy?”) also makes an appearance as another sort of doofus agent—the big, dumb type with permanent ridges in his bald head. The director is Peter Segal, who recently worked with Adam Sandler in “The Longest Yard,” “50 First Dates” and “Anger Management.” so “Get Smart” definitely has a certain flavor appeal to males—and guy humor.
This story chronicles Max’s rise from being a desk-bound analyst to being a real agent in the super-secret agency called Control. Because the secret identity of existing agents has been comprised, Max is given his first crack at an assignment: tracking down the rogue Russian crime syndicate called Kaos, which is dabbling in nuclear weapons. As Max bumbles his way through this case of Control versus Kaos, the story provides its share of jokes, like when Max spots a huge henchman, played by wrestler Dalip Singh, sitting in the rear of an airplane and says that Singh looks like one of the heads from Easter Island. When funnymen like Carrell or Martin Lawrence star in a comedy like this, it is sometimes difficult to figure out if they adlibbed these kind of jokes or whether they were in the script. But however the jokes—some cheesy, some high brow—arrived in the script, there are enough of them in this film to satisfy a range of tastes in humor.
The fantasy part of “Get Smart” is also the parody and humor. After so many movies depicting the oh-so-serious meeting of a U.S. president with his cabinet members in Washington, it takes a movie like “Get Smart” to turn such a meeting into a naked pissing match of egos and old men ready to fight.
This review also appeared on Tom Joyner's BlackAmericaWeb.com,/i>
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