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| Steve Carell's tie flies in the face of his agent colleague Anne Hathaway on this amusing poster for Peter Segal's Get Smart |
Our hero Maxwell Smart of top secret US intelligence agency CONTROL goes into active field duty, - his big dream - to fight the head honcho of terror organization KAOS.
Get Smart is written by Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember (Epic (2013), both), based on the same-titled 1965-70 TV-series by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, and directed by Peter Segal (Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994)).
It is a calculated studio attempt to see whether (Mel) Brooksian comedy can be remade successfully, which in this case, however, also needs to function as action ... The result is a film that just doesn't take off despite the well-meaning efforts of its cast. Weak direction and a weaker script seem to be to blame.
The entire rehash is in some way too retrospective; partially set in Russia, and too obsessed with incorporating gags and details from the TV-series, which will be unknown to most audiences in 2008 and henceforth.
Steve Carell (Bewitched (2005)) is no Leslie Nielsen or Peter Sellers, leading men in the specific brand of duck-brained lawman spoof subgenre revisited here, but he does make Get Smart cheerful in his own dopey way.
Related post:
Peter Segal: The Longest Yard (2005) - A few laughs register in shallow, overlong MTV-produced sports comedy remake
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 80 mil. $
Box office: 230.6 mil. $
= Box office success (returned 2.88 times its cost)
[Get Smart opened 19 June (South Korea + 7 other markets) and runs 110 minutes. Anne Hathaway (The Intern (2015)) was paid 5 mil. $ for her performance. Shooting took place from March - June 2007 in Moscow, Russia, Québec, including Montreal, Washington DC and in California, including Los Angeles. The film opened #1 to a 38.6 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 2 weeks in the top 5 (#3-#4) and grossed 130.3 mil. $ (56.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Australia with 14.1 mil. $ (6.1 %) and Mexico with 10.4 mil. $ (4.5 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 3.5/4 star review, translating to 3 notches higher than this one. The film reportedly made in excess of 36.5 mil. $ on domestic DVD sales alone. Sequel plans never came to fruition. Segal returned with In Security (2010, TV movie) and Prodigy Bully (2012, TV movie) and theatrically with Grudge Match (2013). Carell returned in Date Night (2010); Hathaway in Get Smart's Bruce and Lloyd Out of Control (2008, video spin-off) and theatrically in Rachel Getting Married (2008). Get Smart is rotten at 51 % with a 5.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Get Smart?
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