Dir. Peter Segal ,US, 2008, 110 mins
Cast: Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson
Review by Carol Allen
Director Segal claims to be a great fan of the iconic 60s television series, so although this movie is set in today's world, one could justifiably assume it has some degree of fidelity to the original.
The set up is a sort of American comedic James Bond. Carell plays Maxwell Smart, a novice agent with secret US spy agency CONTROL, whose mission is to thwart a plot for world domination (oh really?) by evil crime syndicate KAOS. Helping him in his mission are glamorous and lethal Agent 99 (Hathaway) and Smart's idol and role model, superstar Agent 23 (Johnson).
Carell is a brilliant comic actor and while this is not his best work, he's still funny as the analyst turned inept agent, obsessed by the fussy detail of his interminable intelligence reports, which ultimately bring him out on top. Hathaway looks pretty and is suitably athletic doing unlikely stunts in high heels and a skimpy frock as his more experienced partner. Their spikey relationship between Mr Background Knowledge and Ms Action Woman is amusing. Johnson, the actor formerly known as The Rock, who presumably now wants to be known as plain Dwayne Johnson, is effective as Mr Super Cool Agent, as is Alan Arkin as the harrassed boss of CONTROL. Terence Stamp, the token English villain, is effective in an underwritten role and James Caan pops up late in the movie as the President who always gets his words wrong. No prizes for guessing whom he is sending up, though it's not as sharp a caricature as it should be.
The film overall though is fun but it could be funnier. It moves at a breakneck pace, but because of that some of the verbal gags get lost in the rush. The timing's not quite right, leaving you still laughing at one line and missing the next gag. Perhaps because of that it's the visual jokes that work best, as in the scene where Smart and Agent 99 are sending up the laser beams scene from Entrapment and another set in a men's toilet, where Smart keeps stopping the flow while relieving himself in order to try to overhear a conversation. There is some amusing playground-level humour too, though Hathway looks a bit young to be the butt of the jokes made about being too old to have babies.
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