‘Get Smart’ misses it by that much

The humor – nay, the wit – of the old “Get Smart” TV series was neatly encapsulated in the closing credits of the show. You remember it. Maxwell Smart, looking as natty as ever, approaches the camera from the phone booth at the back of a long hallway, walking on a painted line and in step to the theme song, a brilliant sendup of swaggering secret agent music.

He turns to look back, and a series of doors closes behind him, just as they’re supposed to, all except the last one. Something’s wrong. He returns to the last door and it swings closed, right on his nose.

As jokes go, it wasn’t a knee-slapper, but there was something so perfect about that sequence that you watched it every time, hoping that Max would wake up and realize what was happening, but of course he never did.

You might think that the makers of “Get Smart” the movie, starring Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway, would have taken the trouble to analyze what made the TV show tick. One doesn’t need to revere the TV show to understand that it had a peculiar charm, and that that very charm is the reason why anyone would want to see a “Get Smart” movie.

Well, the makers of the movie get just about everything wrong, but, to their credit, I guess, it doesn’t look like they were trying to get it right in the first place. This is 2008, man; we’re more sophisticated now. The humor is, therefore, of the gross-out (watch for the barf bag), fat-joke and bathroom variety. Hilarious!

The action and violence (yes) are pumped up to current standards of action and violence, which means epic explosions, superhero acrobatics, bone-crushing fisticuffs, and clean murder, all of which is captured in quickly edited blurs of mayhem, none of which is funny.

In some sort of time warp, the period is now. CONTROL has supposedly been mothballed at the end of the Cold War, but continues to operate in secret against the evil KAOS.

Max (Carell) is a CONTROL analyst who longs to be an agent – he has yet to be on a mission. .

We soon sense that Max is not quite the Max we knew. Yes, he is bumbling and dim – an opening montage of his Post-its (“Get new goldfish”) tells us that – but he’s also an exceptional (if boring) analyst and, when it comes to it, not a completely helpless agent. It’s a weird mixture that never quite gels into a complete character.

Carell would seem to be perfect casting for Max, but his brand of deadpan stiffness proves an odd fit. He manages to make Don Adams, the original Max, look like a comedic genius, and perhaps he was. It turns out that the character’s famous catch phrases – “Would you believe ...?,” “Sorry about that, Chief,” and “Missed it by that much,” all rehashed here – got a considerable amount of their zing from Adams’ delivery.

Carell reveals no such talent here; he could be reading a phone book. As Agent 99, Hathaway is admittedly rather attractive and good enough with what she’s got, but when the filmmakers actually attempt to make her into a touching figure you may want to reach for your own barf bag.

Terence Stamp (Siegfried) and Alan Arkin (The Chief) are wasted, their parts seeming like first drafts. (Arkin and Carell never get anything going between them, unlike Ed Platt and Adams.)

Throwaway cameos are conceived for Bill Murray and Bernie Kopell (the original Siegfried); James Caan supplies an agreeable turn as a Bush-like president.

At the end, there’s no nose-tweak when Max goes back to that stubborn door. A visit to the hospital, if not the mortuary, is indicated. Even the theme music is on steroids. Such are the subtle joys of this “Get Smart.” The quick hit

Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) returns as the bumbling CONTROL agent, teamed with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) to once again fight the evil KAOS. The movie isn’t so much a spy spoof, nor all that faithful to the TV series, but an action comedy like so many others – that is, only occasionally funny.

“Get Smart”
Stars: Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson, Alan Arkin, Terence Stamp
Behind the scenes: Directed by Peter Segal; written by Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember
Rated: PG-13 for rude humor, action violence and language
Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes
Grade: C