Get Smart (2008) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Peter Segal

Starring:  Steve Carrell, Anne Hathaway, Terence Stamp, Alan Arkin, James Caan, Dwayne Johnson

Last week, the name of the next James Bond movie was announced.    It will be titled SPECTRE, no doubt referring to the terrorist organization which is never quite able to fulfill its dreams of world domination thanks mostly to Bond.    Let's face it:  SPECTRE is a group of screwups which, no matter how hard it tries, cannot dispose of one man.    Why should any world leaders take SPECTRE seriously, considering its dubious track record?    They should just wait for James Bond to show up.     Even Dr. Evil's organization is more threatening. 

With that in mind, is KAOS, the group battling Maxwell Smart and company in Get Smart, any different?    KAOS is meant to be a sendup of SPECTRE, but in actuality, they are both similar.    How can KAOS be a spoof of SPECTRE when SPECTRE is as equally adept at fucking up as KAOS?    Actually, KAOS simply provides the plot on which to hang the gags for Get Smart.     The results are very funny and witty.    Director Segal and his cast weren't content with a silly adaptation of the 1960's TV series, but wanted to put its own stamp on things.     There are plenty of sly one-liners to be sure, but we can't help but root for the underdog Smart, who succeeds at times despite himself and at times because he can be pretty darn brilliant.

KAOS orchestrates a new plot in which it builds a nuclear weapon to blow up half of Los Angeles during the President's trip there.     A Moscow bakery is used as a front to create the weapon.     At least KAOS didn't go through the trouble of stealing a warhead.     When CONTROL, the agency Smart works for as an analyst, is blown to smithereens, Smart is made an agent and is teamed up with the mysterious, sexy Agent 99 (Hathaway), who at times has to bail Smart out of trouble and may even wind up in love with him when all is said and done.

Agent 23 (Johnson) is also put on the case.    Carrell carries the load, but Hathaway and Johnson also prove to be deft comic actors.    Alan Arkin can be funny without even seeming to try.    "Anyone who is thrown in jail and then breaks out of jail to save the same people who jailed him is either a double agent or not an idiot.    And you are not a double agent," he tells Smart at one point.     Sounds pretty logical to me.     Terence Stamp is on hand as Siegfried, the head of KAOS who bemoans that he is stuck with dopes working for him.    He gets his comeuppance in a very funny sequence in which he makes the wrong guy angry at the worst possible time. 

Get Smart took great care to be a smart comic action film.    We care about the outcome, mostly because we like these slyly goofy characters so much.     An initial showdown between Smart and Siegfried is a microcosm of the film's wit.

Siegfried:   If you were CONTROL, you would already be dead.

Smart:   If I were CONTROL, you would already be dead.

Siegfried's henchman:   It actually makes sense.