Fletch's Film Review: Get Smart

Adam over at Counting Down the Hours recently learned that a review of his had been blurbed recently for an Australian newspaper. Despite the fact that he has in-roads to this based on some of the places he submits his reviews, this makes me jealous. So, in the hopes of getting myself noticed by Warner Brothers (Get Smart's distributor), I hereby present some potential blurbs I've specially prepared for the film:

"Steve Carrell gives an extraordinarily keen, wildly inoffensive performance!"

"Moderately entertaining!"

"Like Austin Powers mixed with True Lies, just not as funny or daring as either!"

"You'll be blown away...by the sound of explosions!"

"Dwayne Johnson proves he's out to rock audiences!"

"Meh!"

"Hathaway enchants this 40-year old series!"

Okay, that's enough of that. Fact is, there's nothing wildly bad about Get Smart. Unlike my thrashing of the smashy Hulk, I have no real vitriol to toss at the spy action-comedy. The problem is, though, that there's nothing wildly good about it, either. The blurb above about Austin Powers and True Lies is how I really felt walking out - it tried (unsuccessfully) to mesh the two, only to end up with a product that's neither an action movie nor a comedy. Instead, it meanders from one to the other, while never really giving you the jolt of a roller-coaster ride action flick or the slapstick comedy that comes from the inspiration.

What's left is a generic spy comedy that features a few shout-outs to the origin series, but mostly could be anything were the characters names different. Terrence Stamp steals the show despite being underused as the villainous Siegfried, as does his henchman, as does WWE wrestler Dalip Singh ("The Great Khali"), proving that big guys have feelings, too. His fellow former wrestler The Rock (Johnson) plays it cool, but is given almost nothing to work with character-wise, so you end up not caring about him in the slightest. Instead, you'll root for underdogs Masi Oka (Heroes) and Nate Torrence (coming a long way from playing "Moose" in Enterprise car rental commercials) as they battle office jerks David Koechner and Terry Crews. You'll also love the too-brief cameo from a certain SNL star of yesteryear.

But mostly, you'll just sit there and be mildly entertained for two hours. Woo!

Fletch's Film Rating:

"Whatever."