Get Smart (2008)

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Get Smart is happy enough to play for straight laughs rather than truly subversive wit.

Smart summer entertainment that retains the likeability and wit of its source material but brings it into the 21st century with a perfectly cast Steve Carell.

You'll have a better time if you don't expect this re-imagined work to resemble the original. The phone shoe does fit Carell, and he wears it well.

Anne Hathaway plays the straightest part, quite possibly well, we are not entirely sure. She is so incapacitatingly sexy we lost concentration during several of her scenes.

The film doesn't have the sharp hysteria of the series, and it gets a bit over-serious at times. But it's still a thoroughly entertaining film with terrific characters all its own.

We sit back and wait for the laughs. Which come pretty slow and infrequent, though Carell does his straight-faced best to act out the A-Z of Hilarious.

The film is about as funny as a 3am cold call, and if you are a critic you cannot slam down the phone before you have heard it out.

Get Smart won’t change the world but it is the most fun movie out this weekend.