5.05.2007

Get Smart, Again! (1989)

I used to watch Get Smart, a children's spy show, on YTV when I was young, so I couldn't pass up buying the bargain bin reunion DVD. The original series ran from 1965-1970, so some of the actors in the final chapter of Control vs. KAOS look a little worse for wear - especially Agent 99. She was the reason I bought the $2.99 DVD, but looks like some facial reconstruction took place between 1970 and 1989. Darn.

So, like my last post, it is necessary to accept certain unlikely/impossible events/objects in this movie in order to truly enjoy it; a history with the characters, like I had, is also a big help. So, in the tradition of the Pink Panther, Inspector Gadget (whose voice was Don Adams who played Maxwell Smart), Austin Powers and all blundering spies, we have the inept Agent 86 (Smart) and sexy sidekick Agent 99. They have a robot agent and an agent who invents cool gadgets to aid them in the quest to defeat the evil KAOS who have captured a professor and used his formula to create a weather making machine. Sound familar?

I found constant references to how Americans were polluting and constantly watching TV to be rather humourous. The film is stacked with clever and not so clever puns. The most hilarious parts were some comments made by 86, such as:

CIA Chief: You look to be in pretty good shape.
Agent 86: Would you believe that I run 100 miles a day?
CIA Chief: I find that pretty hard to believe.
Agent 86: Would you believe that I run 50 miles a day?
CIA Chief: No.
Agent 86: How about 2 pushups and heavy breathing?
The comedy is slapstick and often very cliché. Though there is a noble moral to the story, it's not going to convince anyone to read more. For what it is, I was surprised at how much it kept me awake.

IMDB

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