I’m heading over to Warner Brothers today for an editing bay visit with Get Smart director Peter Segal. Once he’s done guiding me through a shot-by-shot breakdown of his brilliant cat-reacts-to-the-size-of- Allen-Covert’s-dick gag from Anger Management, it’s possible that we might actually get around to discussing Get Smart. But I guarantee nothing.
I don’t know when I’ll be able to write about this visit, so here’s the international trailer to tide you over until I can offer something a little more substantive. As a fan of the original show, I’m pleased that they’ve been able to maintain the unabashedly loopy tone while working in all of the big-budget set pieces audiences expect from a summer comedy. Though there’s no replacing the great Don Adams, I can’t think of anyone better suited to pay homage to his deadpan delivery than Steve Carrell; sure, he’s going to work his own variation on the character (i.e. he’s going to indulge his penchant for bellowing outbursts), but his basic demeanor isn’t that far off from Adams. And who wants a straight-up Adams imitation anyway? That’s how you get Dragnet.
Of course, Agent 86 is useless without a game Agent 99 to play off of, and it looks like Anne Hathaway will at least be a solid successor to Barbara Feldon. Some folks are bothered by the twenty year age difference between Carrell and Hathaway, but she projects enough maturity to cover the distance.
We don’t get to see much from the rest of the team (which includes Alan Arkin as Chief and Dwayne Johnson as the dapper Agent 23), but I’m sure subsequent trailers will work them in. Perhaps I’ll have more to say in a few days. Unless I’m embargoed, in which case you’re screwed.