STUDIO: Warner Brothers
RELEASE DATE: November 4, 2008
STARRING: Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Terence Stamp, Alan Arkin, and Dwayne Johnson
WRITTEN BY: Tom J. Astle & Matt Ember
DIRECTED BY: Peter Segal
FEATURES: Play Movie Straight Through Or In Comedy Optimization Mode With Get Smart Takes, over 45 Minutes Of Hilarious Alternative Jokes
The Old I Hid It In The Movie Trick: Concealed References to The Classic TV Series
The Right Agent For The Right Job: Behind The Scenes
Max In Moscow!: On Location Or On A Soundstage?
Language Lessons: Spotlight On Linguistics Master Steve Carell
The Vomit Reel: On-Screen Ways To Depict It Than You'd Ever Think
Spy Confidential: Gag Reel
Spying On Get Smart's Bruce And Lloyd Out Of Control
Blu-ray Exclusive Bonus Disc - Get Smart: Kaos Control DVD Game

"Get Smart - Now 62% Funnier!" How is that possible? Did they remake it again already? No, the DVD and Blu-Ray editions of the Peter Segal take on one of the most beloved action/comedy shows in the history of TV includes alternate takes and deleted scenes placed within the context of the movie (along with the standard theatrical version). After a joke, a phone booth icon will appear and you'll instantly see three or four other punchlines or, more rarely, an entirely different scene. It does show what a large percentage of Get Smart was improvised. It's a clever idea but I wonder what it says about the artistic integrity of a director and two writers that they're willing to give their audience a "choose your own punchline" version of their vision. Perhaps vision is too strong a word for Get Smart. Every once in a while a completely deleted scene, not just an extended or alternate take, will pop up and I wished those were available separately, just to see what didn't make the movie in any form.

Joke-a-rama or not, is Get Smart worth your time or money on Blu-Ray? That depends. Most people I know that were huge fans of the show (myself included) were not very big fans of the movie. However, we were in the general minority, as a lot of people I've talked to who couldn't care less about Don Adams enjoyed this summer action adventure. Personally, I think action/comedy is a real hard genre to pull off. Action movies are already over-the-top by their very nature and when they try to get funny it often leads to schticky humor. Until Daniel Craig took over the Bond movies were practically self-parodies in themselves. Maintaining the balance between well-done action and snappy banter requires pitch perfect timing and it's just not there in Get Smart. Rather than update the show with vibrant, modern-day energy, the writers of Get Smart have made a film that could have come out halfway between the era of the original show and the current one - back when movies like this were more popular.

Steve Carell plays Maxwell Smart, an assistant and wannabe agent for the Chief (Alan Arkin) of CONTROL, a covert government agency that was supposedly disbanded years ago but still works to protect the world from its rival, CHAOS. Smart gets his chance to finally enter the field after CONTROL headquarters is attacked and the Chief has no choice but to promote the bumbling hero. Lucky for Smart, he's partnered with the only spy still available and one of the best in the business, Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway). 99 and Smart are tasked with trying to figure out who betrayed CONTROL and stop the nefarious Siegfried (Terence Stamp) from detonating a bomb and holding the world hostage. Anchorman's David Koechner and Terry Crews co-star as spies and Masi Oka and Nate Torrence appear as bumbling scientists who try to assist Smart. Bill Murray, Kevin Nealon, and a face from the original show pop up in a weird series of cameos that's more distracting than hilarious.

When I read that Carell was cast as Smart, I thought it was perfect. The deadpan wit on display in The Office and The 40-Year-Old Virgin would have been the ideal fit for Get Smart. But this isn't THAT Carell. It's the one from Evan Almighty and Dan in Real Life - the kind-of bland guy who, I'm sorry to say, doesn't seem able to carry a movie. He makes some decent decisions with Maxwell but he plays it way too straight. Don Adams knew he was having fun with the character. You don't get that enough from Carell. He's saved by Alan Arkin and Anne Hathaway. The former is the only one who seems to be aware that if he was having fun that we would too and the latter proves that she could carry an action movie on her own. Casting aside, my biggest problem with Get Smart is that it just isn't funny enough. Arkin, Hathaway, and some well-choreographed action might make it worth a rental, but this Get Smart fan was hoping for more than that faint praise.

It doesn't help that the Blu-Ray release of Get Smart feels like the set-up for a double dip. The video in 1080p from Warner Brothers is the best thing about the release. It's perfectly mixed. But the special features are kind of lame. The first featurette on the pop-up menu is called "I Hid It in the Movie" and it runs only 9 minutes and is hosted by the massively obnoxious Bruce and Lloyd. That's the first featurette out of the box? Comparing references to the better source material hosted by two of the most minor characters in the flick? Hmmmm. Let's move on. The behind-the-scenes featurette, "The Right Agent for the Right Job" is classic EPK stuff. It's clearly not new and it only runs 10 minutes. It does have some cool things like Hathaway's first audition for Agent 99 but barely an interview with the actual cast. But there will be extensive interviews with the all-star cast eventually, right? Nope. The other three featurettes are about on location shooting, language lessons with Steve Carell, and vomit depiction. I realize that Get Smart is not your typical Oscar fare, but I wanted to hear from Carell, Arkin, and the more-consistently-fascinating-by-the-day Anne Hathaway (if you haven't seen her in Rachel Getting Married, do so immediately). The lack of a commentary track, trivia track, or any extensive featurettes clearly hints at a double dip to follow. Get Smart just proves that a DVD release doesn't have to be traditionally bare-bones to be lackluster in the special features department. And that not all remakes are horrible. Some are just so-so.