Missed it by that much.
"Get Smart" is nearly everything you'd hope an adaptation of a 1960s sit-com could be. Nearly. It's rollicking in places but tame in others. Whenever the humor goes zany, the comedy slips out from under the shadow of its small-screen predecessor to become a spunky creation of its own.
But the film fires too many blanks at the oversatirized spy-film genre, with lame observational humor that would have seemed dated even before Austin Powers first confronted Dr. Evil. It's here that "Get Smart" gets dumb.
There's enough talent in the cast to grease the rusted wheels into a reasonably smooth ride. Heck, you can't stick "Little Miss Sunshine" alumni Steve Carell and Alan Arkin in the same moving vehicle and not pump laughing gas into the theater aisles. Throw in a windshield-shattering swordfish and you've got one of the funniest scenes of the year.
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Carell plays Maxwell Smart, who begs the Chief (Arkin) to let him become an agent for the CIA-like CONTROL, which is forever locked in a battle with the evil terrorist organization KAOS.
Smart gets his chance because KAOS sneak-attacks the CONTROL headquarters and there's seemingly no one else to choose. He teams with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) and heads to Russia to retaliate and snuff out the enemy's plans to release nukes worldwide. The heroes are armed with endless gadgets, including a pocket knife with a flamethrower and harpoon gun, but their greatest weapons are the convenient contrivances of a lukewarm script.
Playing off Hathaway's prim indifference, Carell owns the screen with his reactions and delivery, wisely avoiding a staccato-talking Don Adams impersonation to make the bumbling character his own. Well, mostly his own. You don't have to squint your eyes to detect a sizable portion of Carell's "The Office"-mate Dwight Schrute — so eager to please, so incompetent and overconfident.
It's Carell's show, but there's plenty of room for the supporting cast to flourish. As he's done several times in "The Office," David Koechner — playing a rascally CONTROL colleague — bounds onto the screen in the form of instant belly laughs, all backslapping and inappropriate wisecracks. The stately Terence Stamp snarlingly chews his scenery as the KAOS ringleader, and Dwayne "don't call me The Rock anymore" Johnson is likewise solid as flashy, impeccable Agent 23, the polar opposite of the inept Smart.
Really, the only thing you need to do for a successful Carell comedy is stay out of the way. But apparently that was too difficult a mission for the film to accomplish.
Get Smart
**1/2
• Rated: PG-13 for some rude humor, action violence and language.
• Cast: Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson, Alan Arkin.
• Director: Peter Segal.
• Family call: Fine for families.
• Running time: 110 minutes.
