So what is this one about?When the identities of secret agents from Control are compromised, the Chief (Alan Arkin
) promotes hapless but eager analyst Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) and teams him with stylish, capable Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway), the only spy whose cover remains intact. Now, they must work together to thwart the evil plans of KAOS and its crafty operative Siegfried (Terence Stamp). Based on the classic television show, this comedy caper co-stars The Rock.And how much did I pay to watch?
Nothing, because it was Lori's treat for me and my mom.
And what did I think?
I thought it was fine. Yeah, just fine. I know it isn't a glowing initial response, but it wasn't really that amazing.
Steve Carell plays one character in everything he does. Now, fortunately for me, I like that character so I have no problem seeing it all the time. You know, Steve Carell in The Daily Show and Anchorman are really the roles that are different, so maybe they deserve all the credit. But, I am getting off topic. Really the movie was fine. Maxwell Smart was the nice guy that Michael Scott is (you know, underneath all of his nonsense) and it made the character very likeable.
Seeing a love connection between Carell and Hathaway was actually disturbing. Carell, in an interview in In Style (crap, or maybe it was in People) said that it was weird that he played a character who got to kiss a woman, and I totally agree. I mean, Carell is a handsome guy and totally loveable, but a leading man type....not really. not at all.
There were some laughs, Alan Arkin was especially funny, but nothing earth shattering. I liked the little bit of DC backdrop and I liked that KAOS was gonna blow up Los Angeles. I liked the scenes in Russia...though I'm going to venture a guess and say that the countryside is not nearly as nicely manicured in real life. And I liked that one of the bad buys was from the former Yugoslavia. I think he might have even been Albanian...though Serbian would have been more accurate. HA!
So what is the rating? (out of 10)
It was really a fine movie. Not like, "man, that is fine tailoring on that coat!" but fine like "How are you today?" "I'm fine" fine. It got a 3 out of 5 on Netflix, but I'll give it a 6 here because of my love for Steve Carell.
8 comments:
Hey! You are back and have a movie blog! I gotta update my linkz, post haste.
A question. I just saw that movie, 4 Months X Weeks X Days (too lazy to look it up)(SPOILER ALERT for anybody else), and it was indeed perfect, but what do you think: were we supposed to assume that the abortionist's ID was fake, as soon as the hotel lady announced that he'd left it? Because when that happened I tensed up, thinking he was going to come back and all sorts of evil shit was going to happen. But no. Was I being dumb, oblivious to Romanian mores and fake ID shennanigans and the fact that he'd kind of conned them into the sex by pretending he was taking risks? Or WERE we supposed to wonder if he'd return? Hmm.
Wait. What?
I think the abortionist was a real abortionist. I think maybe the ID was fake, or maybe he just didn't care to pick up the card. Because the girl did miscarry...so I guess he did something right. But what do you mean, conned them into sex? I'm confused.
But yeah, I agree with you. The whole time the one girl was at her boyfriend's house I sort of hoped that her friend was bleeding to death in the hotel room (so then there would be some sort of guilt complex that the other girl would have to deal with her whole life) and I was wildly disappointed when nothing happened.
Oh yeah yeah I don't doubt his profession. But I just wondered whether that was his real ID, or just a fake one he carried whenever he went to work. If it was his actual ID, that would be a hugely stupid mistake to forget it at the hotel, and even if he was stupid enough to do that, he probably would've come back to get it once he realized what he'd done(this was what I was afraid of: the girl would return to the hotel and he'd be there, doing terrible things! I don't know what terrible things! But he'd be angry about her taking his ID and leaving, that's for sure).
But he never came back. So that made me think, huh, I guess when the hotel lady said he'd left his ID, we should've known immediately that it was fake, expendable, something he carried around just in case. Which means he'd lied about the risks he was taking when he was like psychologically abusing/blackmailing them into sex. Because wasn't that part of it? You have to have sex with me now, because you're farther along in the pregnancy than you said you were (true) and also because you fucked up the hotel reservations and now my ID is at the front desk and I'm in trouble (not true! If the ID was fake and he was going to leave it behind all along, I mean.)
It just made him that much more evil and manipulative in my mind, I guess.
Also the girl who had the abortion was SO ANNOYING. Man! I hated her.
I don't think he was blackmailing them into sex. He was blackmailing them into paying him more money.
In eastern europe money is all that matters...there are like 12949380923740937409324092374 drunken ladies on the street who will, um, put out. He was def asking them for more money.
Also, yeah, i guess the id was fake. I guess the real problem that he faced was actually being caught. Like, and I dont know why they would do this, the police showing up at the hotel and checking in on them. The illegality of abortions in Romania is totally true, but I suppose if they didn't know his real name then it wouldn't have been as much of an issue. I mean, we've all seen Vera Drake, right? She was in trouble because they knew she was an abortionist.
And yeah, that beyatch was totes annoying. I don't know why her friend put up with her and her nonsense AT ALL.
"I don't think he was blackmailing them into sex. He was blackmailing them into paying him more money."
WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? omg we are in such disagreement about this.
Okay maybe I'm remembering this wrong, but I thought it was pretty, PRETTY clear what he was really angling for. I mean he said (paraphrasing) "I'm being nice to you, so you should be nice to me," and then he said he was going to go into the bathroom, and when he came out they needed to have decided whether they wanted to do it and "who would go first."
Right??? Didn't he explicitly say "decide who goes first?" And then wasn't he leaving, leaving, leaving, about to walk out of the room until the girl called out "okay" and then started taking off her shoes and socks?
wikipedia agrees with me, although that isn't saying much:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_Months,_3_Weeks_and_2_Days
Also, it doesn't even mention the left-behind ID. Am I the only one who cares about it? Damn.
Rolling Stone says, "He'll freeze your blood. Bebe is a tyrant, clinical in attitude, even when demanding sex from both women for his services." so I guess you're right.
I'm embarrassed now. I guess this what like when I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower and completely missed that his aunt had molested him.
Whooooooops.
I suppose I would have appreciated it more had the director decided to be more specific with that choice. I mean, if you show the audience what these girls had to do to get the abortion maybe I would have rated the movie higher.
Still though, if I had been Mr. Bebe I would have wanted more money. As I said, he could get sex anywhere, so why bother getting it when he could have gotten more money instead?
Get Smart looks okay over all though it seems like Steve Carell is veering toward an excess of slapstick humor
Patrick-- Get Smart wasn't wildly slapstick. Carell seems to always play the same sort of character and none of them are very slapstick. Its a bit more like when you think about it you laugh. If that makes sense.
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