‘Get Smart- The Movie’ was always going to get the blowtorch treatment. How could a movie possibly do justice to one of television’s finest comedy series?!

Peter Segak directed the movie with Steve Carell playing Get Smart aka Agent 86, Anne Hathaway playing Agent 99, and Alan Arkin playing the Chief. Of-course the battle lines were still the same; America’s National Security service CONTROL against the evil KAOS.

My verdict. It was a buzz to see the all the old visual gags again, to hear all those great Maxwell Smart lines again, and to revisit a lot of the old characters again, Larabie, Siegdfried, and even robot Hymie makes a cameo. Amongst the highlights was seeing the Cone of Silence and seeing Bill Murray as a Control Agent encased in a tree.

Yet the film didn’t satisfy. Something grated. The original television series had such cleverness and style. Segak’s movie played out too much like a multi-million dollar action movie extravaganza and besmiched my memory of the brilliant series.