Movie Review: Get Smart Gets Rebooted for the Big Screen

In the interest of full disclosure, the version of the film I saw was not finished, although it appeared very close. Some of the digital effects related to the stunt scenes needed to be completed. Also, there was a jump in one plot line that had me wondering if a sequence was missing or if, more likely, it was just poorly written and no one on the crew seemed to notice or care, as is the case with many Hollywood blockbusters.

Get Smart was a classic '60s television sitcom that starred Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, Agent 86 of the U.S spy agency CONTROL. The character was a combination of James Bond and Inspector Clouseau, but he always saved the day in spite of his bumbling and incompetence. As a fan, I was skeptical that such an iconic series could be remade today because the odds of a new group of people capturing the same magic was unlikely, especially when the first big screen adaptation, the unintentionally prophetic The Nude Bomb, had Adams and writer Arne Sultan involved, yet it still failed.

Get Smart (2008) finds Steve Carrell stepping into the shoephone of Maxwell Smart. It's a reboot with a number of changes that may disappoint Smart fans, but should work for people new to the franchise. Adams's Smart was somehow one of the best agents at CONTROL, and what he lacked in intelligence he more than made up for with overconfidence. While still clumsy, Carrell's Smart is smart. He is a very good analyst that wants to be a spy like the rugged Agent 23 (Dwayne Johnson).