Great Action, Great Acting - Get Smart Is A Winner
So I am sitting there watching Get Smart and starting to truly think that the preview made this dvd appear a lot more interesting. This thought vanished in about ten minutes once we see Max with Agent 99.
I’ve perpetually found Anne Hathaway to be one of the prettiest Hollywood actors and she did not neglect me here either. Her slightly suggestive wardrobe kept the eye forever on the silver screen, which is how it should be.
Steve Carell has superb comic timing, he may at times remind people of Leslie Nielsen in The Naked Gun and Spy Hard style, but outside of that he manages to make Max a truly sympathetic and human character, not just an animated cartoon.
Max and Agent 99 (Carell and Hathaway) never really end up ‘together’, but seem to end more on a ‘best friend’ basis by the conclusion of the picture.
The balance of the cast is mostly well-chosen (however I did not see the reason of Bill Murray’s one minute appearence); there is a large plot spin that allows one cast member to play against character, and even Dalip Singh (aka The Great Khali in WWF) comes off swell, playing a huge indestructible henchman in the custom of Jaws of The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker movies.
I always love a dvd video that can make me laugh and keep the action coming fast. Max and Agent 99 have some strong fight scenes, choreographed by fight scene genius James Lew. For a finale of action they include a grand and chaotic chase sequence as well. By an action viewpoint I could say it easily surpasses that of last Bond films, though the comedy does not make it near as serious.
The story of this picture is rather vanilla, there are honest guys and bad guys and the good have to intercept the bad guys from killing innocent individuals one of which includes the president. However this picture includes a not so normal lead psychoanalyst known as Maxwell Smart who works for a counter terrorism agency and desperately wants to become a field agent.
Even after passing the field agent examination Max is not granted to go outside in the field of battle as his superior (Arkin) tells him that he is the foremost psychoanalyst they have and that he needs him to keep put. Notwithstanding Max is upgraded to a field agent when the evil guys find out all of the names and locations of the current agents and start to eliminate them, with the aid of agent 99 (Hathaway) and agent 23 (The Rock/Dwayne Johnson) Smart is sent to take down the bad guys.
Get Smart has taken a realistic approach to a picture and sometimes seems as if you could be watching a bond picture due to feeling that some of the gizmos are right up Q’s street. However some of the scenes are not to realistic such as hanging on to a wire while flying in mid air but this does add some more jokes to the picture. Steve Carell is very likable in this picture like we have all come to expect and contributes some wonderful onscreen chemistry with co star Hathaway.
I really give this film a thumbs up. Great action, superb acting, and a wonderful body (Hathaway), Get Smart is a winner. It takes a different twist to comedies that make up more serious dvd movies and did it better.