Thursday Night at the Movies

Get Smart

This movie could have been terrible but in fact its pretty good. The cast has a lot to do with its success. Although Steve Carell has been in The Office and several movies, I'm not really familiar with his work. What distinguishes his work here is that he doesn't try to imitate Don Adams. Anne Hathaway is good as 99, especially when she gets to wear a slinky dress about mid-way through. Alan Arkin plays a more aggressive Chief then in the TV show but it works. There are a few cameos, watch out for Bill Murray as Agent 13. They've got all the catch phrases, like "Would you believe..." and "Missed it by that much", but they didn't overdo it. The goofy gadgets like the shoe phone and the Cone of Silence make an appearance but they had lots of new goofy gadgets like a Swiss Army knife which doubles as a cross bow and exploding dental floss. The movie actually works on two levels, comedy and action. The humor seldom descends to bathroom level (by itself a big achievement these days). The action scenes were very well done and actually exciting. All in all we like the movie very much. I think you'll like it too even if you aren't familiar with the original series. You'll miss a few jokes but there are plenty of laughs to go around.

The worse trailer we saw was for the new Eddie Murphy movie called "Meet Dave". Except for the fact that he's got 5 more movies working over the next two years (including Shrek 4), I would say this is the movie which should end Eddie Murphy's career.