Get Smart
starring Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson (The Rock), Alan Arkin, Terrence Stamp, Asi Oka and James Caan, with guest appearances by Bill Murray and Bernie Kopell
written by Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember
directed by Peter Segal
Rating: ♦
I liked this movie. It was stupid, but I liked it. I grew up watching the original Get Smart TV show, written by Buck Henry, in re-runs, featuring Don Adams, Barbara Feldon, Edward Platt and Bernie Kopell. So I was surprised and delighted to see Bernie Kopell appear (as “the Opel driver”) in a cameo, as well as Bill Murray (“Agent 13”), and Kevin Nealon (“CIA Man”). “Get Smart” is a double entendre. It means “become intelligent” (because secret agent Maxwell Smart is so stupid), but it also means “kill Smart” (a directive to the evil secret agents of KAOS to eliminate the bumblingly effective Control Agent Maxwell Smart, Agent 86). The 1960s television show was a parody of the 007 James Bond movies, which themselves were a parody of real Cold War espionage. The show was so popular in re-runs that Don Adams made a Get Smart movie in 1980, called The Nude Bomb (co-starring Sylvia Kristel, directed by Clive Donner, and co-written by the original TV show’s writers, Mel Brooks and Buck Henry). Sadly, Edward Platt was dead by then and could not revise his role. In Get Smart Alan Arkin plays a good Chief, but he doesn’t come across as tortured as Edward Platt was by his incompetent but indispensable agent. So I think I prefer Edward Platt as The Chief.
Terrence Stamp (currently appearing in Valkyrie, with Tom Cruise and Bill Nighy) reminds me of Michael Douglas in that he kind of excels in Master of Darkness roles. In Get Smart he delivers a better version of Bernie Kopell’s original KAOS Agent Siegfried than Kopell himself did. In the TV show Kopell’s Siegfried was a comedic Nazi, while Stamp’s movie version is a decidedly more sinister and competent Bad Guy.
My wife was in the room as I watched this DVD, although we were not watching it together. When I saw the Japanese actor Masi Oka’s name in the credits I asked,
“Do you know Masi Oka?”
“No.”
A few minutes later my teenaged daughter walked into the room in time to see a scene featuring Masi Oka.
“Ah!! Masi Oka!”
“Do you know Masi Oka?”
“Yes!! Of course.”