Get Smart (2008)

If I'm old enough to have watched the original series in the 60's, I would be sitting at the coffee shop downstairs flirting with the 40-year-old beer maid while talking about Malaysian politics while my friend talks about the state of football nowadays because we can't hear each other. The beer maid comes over and offers me another bottle of stout but I decline, so she bends over to show me her cleavage. Her wrinkly, veiny cleavage. Being the horny old man I am, cleavage's cleavage but I cry deep inside at being unable to feel anything down there. Hah hah old people jokes.

Anyway, Get Smart (2008) is a great summer comedy, but an average film at best. The main reason I watched this was because Steve Carell is in it, and The Rock is too. Steve Carell and The Rock. I should be able to get about 5 minutes' worth of laughs from just this pairing alone, right? Well, yes, but there were quite a number of humour scenes which fell flat on their over-written faces as well.

It's like the director wanted the film to be the funny anti-cool-spy-movies movie but decided against it halfway because that might be out of reach for the summer blockbuster audience so there was a healthy dose of Hollywood cliches stuffed into the film's ass, and the result is a very average viewing experience for me.

To the film's credit, there were a couple of genuinely funny moments, such as Carell eavesdropping while peeing and him celebrating his newly-attained Agent status. I'm not sure if this was in the original series but the short cutaway scenes were pretty hilarious as well, even though they reminded me too much of Family Guy's trademark "Remember the last time..." scenes.

What irritated me was the "edgy" political commentary, including unnecessary jabs at George W. Bush. Come on, that guy's not going to be the president for much longer, you won't earn rebel points from the alternative crowd for the not-at-all-subtle jokes. What's (un?)ironic is Himey's (Bad guy) line about Hollywood celebrities' sharp and witty political commentary, so maybe they know that the film has too many of these jabs and they're acknowledging it? Whatever it is, I could have done with those jokes.

Borat's producer, Bayatov, has a supporting role in the film as Himey's bumbling sidesick and there was a reference to his infamous naked wrestling scene in the Borat Movie but luckily, it was kept very short. (The scene, not him) And then, there's also Masi Oka of "FRYING MAN" fame whose character could have as easily been played by anyone else. Speaking of expendable, Anne Hathaway's contribution to this film can be summarised by this picture below:



Replace her with a girl grabbed off the road outside the studio while showing a static image of tits everytime her character appears, and I couldn't have cared less. But hey, cleavage's cleavage.

So, go ahead and watch it but I wouldn't spend more than $8 on it if I were you. My ticket cost $6 by the way, thanks to some discount you get for watching a weekday afternoon movie while paying by NETS. However, if you're a Steve Carell fan, try to catch it, as best as possible. Like in the case of Dan in Real Life, he singlehandedly adds a star or two to the film's ratings.

Also, the action scenes suck. I'm too lazy to put this in the middle of the review and write a paragraph about it but yeah, the action scenes kind of suck.