Scooter Chronicles

On Sunday afternoon, thanks to my Mother-In-Law babysitting Nigel, Marcia and I snuck out to see the movie version of “Get Smart” starring Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Alan Arkin, Dwayne (”The Rock”) Johnson, and Terence Stamp.

The plot is pretty basic. Control is trying to stop KAOS from, well, creating chaos. This time it’s nuclear bombs distributed to different countries by Siegfried (Stamp). Maxwell Smart (Carell) is Control’s top analyst, and though he has recently passed the test to become an agent, doesn’t get the promotion because the Chief (Arkin) doesn’t want to lose such a valuable commodity. But eventually Control is broken into, compromising most of the agents who are gunned down, with only Agent 23 (Johnson) and Agent 99 (Hathaway) left. So finally, Max gets the call to be Agent 86, and they start hunting down KAOS.

Truth be told, I wasn’t a huge “Get Smart” fan to begin with. That’s not to say that I didn’t like the show. Just didn’t go out of my way to watch it. (I did see the movie “The Nude Bomb” during the early days of cable TV.) The idea of Carell playing Maxwell Smart though appealed to me. But as the release date got closer and closer, I started to get the feeling that the movie wouldn’t live up to it’s expectations. Marcia wanted to see it, and not minding those in the cast, especially Carell, I was still game.

As it turned out, it wasn’t that bad at all. Surely entertaining. I could have waited for the DVD release, but still not a bad way to spend a matinee afternoon. Carell didn’t try to become Don Adams. He was just typical Carell. Arkin too didn’t channel his predecessor, just played the part the best way he knew how. I actually really liked Arkin’s performance. His subtleness sometimes isn’t so subtle, which is a good thing. Johnson also impressed me. The man has good comedic timing and can seemingly act well. He may break out from his pro-wrestling persona and make a name for himself in the acting biz. And as for Ms. Hathaway … WOW! Boy, has she grown up. ; ) I never saw any of her teeny-girly movies (as it should be), but she certainly made a believable move into the broader movie market.

Overall it was good to see them not try to do it just like the show. Obviously Control is much more updated now (the movie takes place “today”). They even paid a little homage to the original show with a museum like scene at the beginning of the movie. Of Don Adams’ famous lines, most of them were used (only “…. and loving it!” didn’t make an appearance), but only used once each. Good not to overdo things.

Marcia made the comment that the movie had a very “Johnny English” feel to it. I feel the same way, but it had more credibility using an already established franchise. (Also, even this version of Maxwell Smart is less bumbling and more intelligent in an analytical way then Johnny English.) For die-hard fans of the show, they may be disappointed. But those of you like me that are looking for an entertaining film without high expectations, this fit the bill very nicely.