Get Smart 2008

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Missed it by that much. Actually, the new version of Get Smart misses by a fair-size margin. It's too bad. It's just trying to give us a good time at the retroplex. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Get Smart is likable and very funny -- at least a two-to-one ratio of excellent gags to clunkers -- but it's not, for better or worse, Get Smart. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Rather than the laugh a minute promised by old comedies, Get Smart generates approximately one laugh per hour, and I can't remember either one. Read more

Mark Rahner, Seattle Times: Despite what seemed (in the trailers, at least) like inspired casting of Steve Carell, the perpetrators of Get Smart almost entirely miss what made the Cold War TV spy comedy funny. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: In updating a beloved TV show, the filmmakers have gone out of their way to excise everything that was fun about it. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Get Smart is by no means a great movie. Would you believe . . . a good movie? Would you believe . . . a passable couple of hours with a decent laugh thrown in here and there? Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Get Smart, version 2008, surrounds skilled, likable players, and a handful of solid belly laughs with $80 million worth of formulaic summer-movie mediocrity. A lot of things explode, but the movie never detonates. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: As a reworking of one of the great 1960s TV comedies, you'd think being funny would be its main goal. But you would be wrong. Very, very wrong. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: I often wondered if the filmmakers weren't trying to fix something that isn't broken. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: Chipper, energetic and unimaginatively plotted re-do. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Get Smart needed to be a lot smarter. And funnier. The movie stands as proof yet again that hit television series do not make for good movies. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: By movie's end, we can imagine spending some more time with Agents 86 and 99, and liking it. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: A little more unabashed silliness might have made Get Smart a better movie. As is it's a chuckly comfort-food film that you neither love nor hate, serviceable fare for a warm summer daze. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Written and directed with efficiency, cheer, and a refreshing lack of look-how-meta-clever-we-are egotism, the movie references just enough of the original touchstones and punchlines to please those who lived it the first time. Read more

Laremy Legel, Film.com: You shouldn't make time to see it, but if you wander in you won't be irate. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: The new Get Smart doesn't miss it by that much. Read more

Tom Maurstad, Dallas Morning News: Instead of the show's wacky, slapstick tone, Get Smart presents itself as an action-filled spy movie that just happens to be really funny. And for the most part, it succeeds. Read more

Amy Nicholson, I.E. Weekly: Steve Carell is still searching for the knockout role that fits, but Smart's suits come yards closer than Bruce's almighty robes. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: It's not going to redefine comedy as we know it, but it's amusing and briskly paced, busy with an engaging mix of supporting actors. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: Get Smart does all it can to please; thanks mostly to Carell, it just barely succeeds. Read more

David Ansen, Newsweek: In this distressingly generic spy spoof, it's not Maxwell who's clueless, but the filmmakers. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: It has the old lines, and the funky props that fans remember. But it also has some decent new ideas, too. And thanks to Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway, a bit of a new vibe. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Although Carell is never less than likable, he's funnier in any random scene of The Office. Here's hoping some misguided team doesn't try to turn that series into a quick grab at box-office bucks 40 years from now. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Would you believe the new version of the '60s spy spoof Get Smart, starring Steve Carell, isn't awful -- like almost all TV-to-movie transfers -- but instead, that it's actually pretty funny (if overlong and overproduced)? Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: I didn't mind the movie, though many of its effects struck me as laboriously overproduced. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Surely after the Speed Racer fiasco, Warner Brothers was ready to say 'sayonara' to lame 1960s TV adaptations. But plainly there wasn't time for the studio to, ahem, Get Smart about that. Read more

David Hiltbrand, Philadelphia Inquirer: All that's missing is the spirit and the anarchic humor of the sitcom created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. The result is an overdressed, carefully stitched scarecrow of a comedy. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: This is one instance when a TV series-based movie rewards nostalgia without demanding it. Get Smart is funny enough in its own right to attract younger viewers while paying homage to its 40-year old predecessor. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: It's funny, exciting, preposterous, great to look at, and made with the same level of technical expertise we'd expect from a new Bond movie itself. And all of that is very nice, but nicer still is the perfect pitch of the casting. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: Get Smart could have been smarter. But like the show that inspired it, it's still smarter than it looks. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Remaking Get Smart for the big screen might have sounded like a bad idea, but the movie shows it to have been something else: a really bad idea. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: With comic resources like this, Get Smart should have been a hoot, not just satisfactory. Missed it by that much. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: The truth is that Get Smart is one of the year's sharper comedies, and if it contains any WMDs, that stands for 'wit of major delight.' Read more

Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine: You cannot expect a bunch of vacationing kids to remember, let alone revere, a cheeky little TV half hour that entertained the old folks almost a half century ago. Read more

Tom Huddlestone, Time Out: Overall this is a limp parade of recycled gags and gadgets: an action movie with no surprises and a comedy with nothing like enough laughs. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: It can't decide whether it wants to be a thrilling action movie or a quirky comic spoof. The elements seem in conflict, rather than seamlessly blended. Read more

John Anderson, Variety: A lot of the comedy seems to have been lost in the translation. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: A pleasant surprise. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: As I say: darned funny! Weightless as froth, forgettable as dew, but pretty darned funny. Read more