Get Smart (2008)

Get Smart: Directed by Peter Segal. With Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson, Alan Arkin. Maxwell Smart, a highly intellectual but bumbling spy working for the CONTROL agency, is tasked with preventing a terrorist attack from rival spy agency KAOS.

“Iu0026#39;m going to preface this review by stating that I havenu0026#39;t seen the original TV series upon which this film was based on. Therefore Iu0026#39;m unable to draw comparisons and will just stick to reviewing this film.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eOne thing I did think was really good about this film was some of the casting choices; Carrell is particularly good here and is very convincing in his respective role as the bumbling u0026amp; inept rookie agent. He brings a sort of naïve charm to many of his performances and I canu0026#39;t think of a role Iu0026#39;ve seen him in where I didnu0026#39;t enjoy his performance. Likewise, I think that Hathaway is a perfect compliment to Carrell and their chemistry in this was great – Hathaway pulls off the sexy, sassy u0026amp; ultra confident field agent with ease. Alan Arkin is a great actor and is always watchable. Likewise, I thought Terrence Stamp was a very effective villain and was quite menacing. Even Dwayne u0026#39;The Rocku0026#39; Johnson (who is not the best of actors) managed to also be quite good here.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI wasnu0026#39;t convinced by all of the characters however; I found Koechner u0026amp; Crews characters to be more annoying than funny. The same could be said of the two nerds who were also annoying rather than funny (although not as much as Koechner u0026amp; Crews). Bill Murray also has a cameo in this which seemed a bit pointless to me.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe one problem with this film was its rather muddled plot- I found it to be very unfocused and it seemed to jump around from place to place and the narrative seemed to jump back and forward which made the story hard to follow at times. Although this was a problem for me, thankfully it wasnu0026#39;t a huge problem as I still found that I enjoyed the film as a whole even if the plot was a little scattershot at times. The main reasons that this film works is due to the excellent chemistry between Hathaway and Carrell and their great interplay makes it possible to ignore some of the issues with the plotting.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eGet Smart is funny, but itu0026#39;s not a film thatu0026#39;s consistently funny but rather a film that is occasionally funny – although I must admit that some of the jokes were really funny so perhaps itu0026#39;s just a case of quality over quantity. Whilst I havenu0026#39;t seen the original TV Series the closest thing that this film reminds me of is Johnny English – therefore if you enjoyed Johnny English then you should enjoy this too. Nothing spectacular, but itu0026#39;s definitely worth a look.”