I think I’ve seen more movies in the past three months than I have the past 2 years. On tap this weekend was Get Smart. I was hesitant to see this, thinking it would be one of those movies where all the funny parts were shown in the trailers that saturated the airwaves leading up to the release. Once again, I was pleasantly surprised. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this was a stellar movie by any stretch of the imagination, but I did laugh a lot more than I expected. While he wasn’t a Don Adams, I think Steve Carell was good in the role of Agent 86, and the casting of Masi Oka (Hiro on Heroes) and Nate Torrence (Studio 60) as techies were also good choices. I wasn’t sold on the choices of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson or Anne Hathaway, however, and the plot was old, the recycled typical bad-guys-try-to-blow-up-the-world-good-guys-stop-them routine. But like I said, there were some good laughs sprinkled throughout and some nice nods back to the basis for the movie, the TV series that aired in the mid-60s. I remember seeing a few episodes of the television series Get Smart when I was younger, and while I don’t remember the specifics, I do remember liking what I saw. The movie seems to be missing the feel of the TV series, though, and almost tries too hard to replicate it, forcing in these references rather than letting them flow naturally.

The movie is good for some laughs if nothing else in the theatres appeals to you right now. Some will like the movie, most probably won’t. The movie could have been much, much worse. I’ll give it a C.