One of film’s great villains passed away recently. Terence Stamp is probably most well-known for portraying General Zod in Superman II. But he has been around a long time in movies, earning his only Oscar nomination in 1962. Think about that. John F. Kennedy was still alive when Terence Stamp was recognized as giving one of the five best performances in a year. That is an extensive career as a working actor. However, I cannot think of anything interesting to say about Superman II. Instead, I want to talk about a silly comedy where he again plays the baddie – Get Smart (2008, dir. Peter Segal).
Get Smart is an updated version of the 1960s television series of the same name. Many of the details remain the same. There is Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell), who is an analyst at the fictional CONTROL Agency (but think CIA). Due to what appears to be an inside attack on the agency, they recall all active field agents and end up promoting Smart to search for the mole. He works with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway), who can still function as she recently had plastic surgery to alter her appearance. They are actually chasing KAOS, a terror group led by Siegried (Stamp), as he threatens nuclear war.
It is a very formulaic “fish out of the water” comedy. Smart is new to the field, so he bumbles his way through assignments and makes embarrassing mistakes that Agent 99 must correct to save them both. We have seen this formula fail multiple times due to weak material or an actor not up for the task. In this case, though, it works because Steve Carell brute-forces the concept across the finish line. He takes himself so seriously in this role that the end result is lots of laughs and even some genuine empathy. (This is the Naked Gun model with a little more empathy.) His interplay with Hathaway is fine but fun enough. There is also a delightful supporting turn from Alan Arkin as the head of CONTROL – always in a fight with other agencies for funding, including a hilariously pathetic meeting of all the agencies that ends with him getting into a fight. Stamp, always believable as a supervillain, delivers enough of a performance, but the film spends little time giving us reasons for his evil plot. In the end, it scarcely matters as the audience does not need everything tied up nicely. It just wants the next gag – like seeing Bill Murray posted in a tree by the reflecting pool of the Washington Monument or The Rock giving his training partner a wet willie after besting him in a drill.
Big fans of the original series will get a kick out of a cameo by Bernie Kopell (the original Siegfried), who gets his car stolen by Smart, and a brief appearance by a HYMIE (a robotic agency assistant, played by Patrick Warburton). There are enough silly jokes that work to make up for the ones that do not, but you are not going to walk away from this film with any grand insights into life or the universe. It is not trying to do that, of course. What you will walk away with is a smile on your face, despite how sophomoric most of the humor is. If you find yourself in the mood for that, there are worse ways to spend 110 minutes.
FUN FACT – Without planning it or thinking about it at all, I chose Get Smart this month, which ranks 774 overall. Last month, I wrote about The Tuskegee Airmen, which ranks 773 overall. Literally because there aren't many fun facts about Get Smart.
Just Watch says that Get Smart is currently streaming on Amazon Prime with ads. It is also available for rent/purchase on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, and other services.
As a reminder, here is the original post that details the scores and weighting system.