Resources: IMDb * Wikipedia
Premise: A spy comedy where an analyst gets his dream of being a field agent.
Directed by: Peter Segal
Stars: Steve Carell, Anne Hathway, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Alan Arkin, Masi Oka, James Caan, Terence Stamp, Terry Crews
Review: In a theatrical conversion of the 1960s/70s camp series, Steve Carell plays Maxwell Smart, a brilliant CONTROL analyst (whose thoroughness is played to comedic effect) who aspires to be a field agent. Needless to say, he gets called up when it is discovered that the evil organization CHAOS has learned of the identities of all CONTROL agents. Paired up with Agent 99 (Hathaway) who has recently undergone plastic surgery, Smart must learn what CHAOS is up to when a weapons facility in Chechnya is attacked.
Carell again basically plays Carell, a 40-something basically playing just beyond his capability - forcing him to step up. He's done this in the 40-Year Old Virgin, The Office, Evan Almighty, Dan in Real Life and others. You never get the sense that Carell is trying to reach as an actor, but he's really enjoyable in this role. Hathaway and the others are great foils for his act, and often provide quite humourous moments themselves - Arkin throwing himself at the Vice-President, the interplay between the agents and the analysts among others.
It's not a straight spoof in the sense of Top Secret! or even the original series, but is more of an Our Man Flint-type movie, where actual spying and adventure take place with lots of humour. Some of the famous lines from the series are used, but appear often misplaced and do not elicit the intended laughs, whereas some low-brow moments and quips generate genuine guffaws.
Overall: Good
No comments:
Post a Comment