Get Smart (2008)
| Overall |  | Story | |
| Production |  | Acting | |
As a long-time fan of the original Don Adams series, I really wanted this to be good. Alas, Get Smart can’t decide if it wants to be a witty slapstick sitcom, an romantic comedy, or a spy thriller. As a result, it doesn’t succeed in any of the above. Indeed, it’s weakest, ironically, when it tries to squeeze in some of the classic TV series lines, and strongest when it’s Steve Carrell as a light-hearted espionage thriller about a well-meaning, quirky, but surprisingly effective intelligence analyst who’s greatest dream is to be an agent.
If you filed off the names and the tag lines, it would be a satisfying little comedy. As it is, the mixed bag simply doesn’t do it.
Bottom line: Glad I saw it, but very glad it came to me (for free), not the other way around.
I couldn’t bring myself to watch it. The humor in the commercials and clips I saw was nothing like what I loved so much from the original show, and Carell’s wooden dead-pan delivery seemed all wrong for Max.