‘Get Smart’ just cannot get funny

“Get Smart” is a film adaptation of the hit 1960s TV comedy, staring Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway. The film also features Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as Agent 23 and a cameo appearance by Bill Murray as Agent 13. The plot of the movie follows the same line as the show, continuing the battle between governmental spy agency CONTROL and enemy spy agency KAOS. For a film based on a television comedy, one would believe it would keep the comedic elements, but such a person would be sorely mistaken.

The story picks up when CONTROL is broken into and ransacked by enemy KAOS spies who steal information, revealing the identities of every spy part of CONTROL. Spies are falling dead left and right. Maxwell Smart (Carell), who is nothing more than a research analyst for the agency, has aspirations to be a spy, but is rejected each time due to his bumbling, yet lovable, goofiness. When almost no agents are left, he is suddenly thrown into the role of Agent 86 and partnered with the more competent Agent 99 (Hathaway). The two set out to thwart Siegfried (Terence Stamp), the leader of KAOS, and his plans to take over the world.

“Get Smart” tries to deliver the funny while bringing the action but misses horribly. The movie follows a very linear plot line: Max and Agent 99 bailing out of an airplane, fighting an enemy spy in the sky, sneaking into an enemy’s mansion and then finally ending with the anti-climatic blowup at a nuclear facility headed by KAOS leader Siegfried. During all of this the movie still brings one question to mind: where is the funny?

The humor got lost somewhere between the opening and closing credits. Only about 20 of the 110 minutes of this movie are sure to generate a chuckle at best, and those moments are few and far between. For the most part, Carell is enjoyable to watch on screen and plays the role of bumbling Smart quite nicely. Carell is able to sneak in a few moments of laughter, especially during the scene when Smart is cramped in an airplane bathroom, trying to escape plastic handcuffs using a miniature harpoon. Of course the handcuffs are the only thing Smart misses. His ears, face, toe and arm take a beating as Smart blurts out obscenities in a painful, yet hilarious, sequence that rivals the chest-waxing scene from Carell’s earlier film “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.”

The other bits of comedy surprisingly come from a pair of bickering and witty techies at the agency that go by Bruce (Masi Oka) and Lloyd (Nate Torrence). It’s a wonder that the movie did not just revolve around these two, instead of the dull duo of Smart and Agent 99. Bruce and Lloyd provided more comical relief in their brief appearances than Smart and his antics did during the entire movie. To put it even more simply, there was as much comedy in this film as there was chemistry between Hathaway and Carell — none.

“Get Smart” fails to get funny. It blunders through, much like its main character, trying to find its footing somewhere between action and comedy. Unfortunately, it’s never able to balance itself.