Get Smart

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PARSLEY'S COMMLOCK

Film Review : Get Smart
Well it's an interesting time to be parodying international terrorism and the security services, but if it has to be done then this effort certainly hits the spot.

Steve Carell stars as CONTROL Agent 86 a.k.a. Maxwell 'Max' Smart. CONTROL are not the CIA, but another organisation that protected us against the bad guy organisation KAOS in the past.

When CONTROL's agents are 'compromised' it's left to Smart to save the world from their crazy nightmare schemes, ably assisted by beautiful girl spy Agent 99 (played by Anne Hathaway - guess she escaped from her cottage…). The only problem is that Smart bungles everything to considerable comic effect.

It's interesting after the relatively downbeat reaction to films like Rowan Atkinson's 'Johnny English' that Warner Brothers were up for a spy spoof. Those of us that were around for the original 60's TV series on which it's based (created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry) were looking to see how the concept got updated to the new century.

Firstly the backplot is altered so that Smart isn't actually an agent to start with, but more of a geek genius data processor guy who gets catapulted into it. Secondly, original Smart was just a relentless bungler & you couldn't work out why he never got fired. Here he's a closet genius and bizarrely has a geeky 'cool' about him that he shares with the 2 gadget boys (1 of whom is Masi Oka who played Hiro in Heroes).

Thirdly, and typically of these re-make films, the plot immediately gets apocalyptic. It's not enough to be like the original shows (which had a structure and episodes) but the whole world of the show has to be under threat, just like it was in Mission:Impossible, Thunderbirds and umpteen Batman films. Anyway, here that is handled well, thank goodness.

Alan Arkin is a softly stated comic genius, and I still chuckle to myself at his version of Inspector Clouseau ripping buttons off his jacket and putting them into the payphone, pretending to the operator that his sister has just turned up and is lending him some change. Here he plays the Chief of CONTROL, and is delicious at sudden moments - please watch out for the one when he shouts at the President (James Caan, obviously playing a thinly veiled George Bush).

In fact the whole plot occasionally 'sails quite close to the wind' in its references to serious news issues in the USA. I could easily be mistaken, but I couldn't help feeling that parallels were being drawn between Agent 23 (Dwayne Johnson a.k.a. wrestler 'The Rock') and O.J.Simpson. Some parallels were less subtle, such as when they were trying to work out what important reason had taken the President to Los Angeles, only to find he's reading a story with some classroom children (as President Bush did during the bombing of the World Trade Center).

There are some classy cameo roles including Terence Stamp as the head of KAOS, and Bill Murray as the sad agent who gets left on remote duty with no one to talk to (echoing a guy in the original series).

The TV show was a relentless stream of short laugh-track comedies, with a fairly strong line in Jewish context. One time Max rescued a scientist from KAOS and the punchline of the episode was him quizzically congratulating himself on saving the life of a German scientist.

It was certainly a top show, with a comic strip version alongside Gerry Anderson shows in TV21. I particularly remember going to California in 1976 and thinking it was wonderful because Get Smart was on 3 times a day. In those pre-video times it was a special treat, and I didn't think anything of using chunks of my holiday to sit and watch it. I've since got quite a few on video from their repeat showing 20 or so years ago, but to tie in with the film a DVD box set has already hit the shops. I also gather that there's a DVD spin-off film already released portraying events that happen around the story in the main film.

The best news about the remake is that the original theme tune plays a full and satisfying role in the soundtrack, including in some incidental moments. The opening sequence also gets a fairly loving update. The cone of silence - the privacy plastic screen that Max insisted everyone speak under - makes a computer graphic-assisted return but it doesn't match the original's comedy pleasure. There are also cameo appearances for Max's shoe-phone, and his catchphrase along the lines of 'would you believe that there are fifty men surrounding this building ? No ? Well would you believe thirty?' etc. The one I was looking out for is when someone says to him 'but Max you'll be in terrible danger if you do that' and he would reply '…and loving every minute of it!' I can honestly say I loved every minute of this excellent film.

Overall Review: Thumbs firmly up. Extremely well done comedy adventure. Not an accurate reprise of the sixties version, but no harm done by new slants. Top action sequences and some borderline outrageous news parody.

parsley@gardenrecords.com [www.gardenrecords.com]