Get Smart The Movie Yet Another Remake
When you start off with a disadvantage, in the movie world of today with its many, many releases, you're already half way to loser status. To try and emulate a TV series that was a hit and had an incredible run with a strong fan base was, perhaps a bit too ambitious. To try and compete with its Golden Globe and Emmy Award winning status was sheer foolishness. There was this popular TV series from way back when that had the same story line but what a show it was!
That, essentially is the handicap that most remakes have - they have to not just be as good as the original, they have to better it every step of the way. If you feel you can't do that, it is best to leave well alone. Simply because there is a lot of sentimentality attached to the old movies and TV shows and even if they weren't perfect sometimes, the people who watched them like to remember them as being that. Of course, when it is a TV series of this caliber with the big names of the yesteryears starring in them, the shoes are almost giant-size to fill. Let's face it, Get Smart of the today type definitely cannot do that and is bound to fall very short of the mark.
The humor, too, seems to have gone way below what is generally accepted and expected of a comedy action movie. Here, the jokes are crude more than funny, something that the original series fought shy of ever degenerating to. Filled with foul language and sick humor, it looks like the scriptwriters had a number of bad days to have come up with the hogwash that passes for dialogue. In fact, it is much better when the action takes over and one is spared the need to listen to one more sentence of pulchritude. Not to mention the many clichés that only want to make you yawn.
The worst sin that the producers and director could have committed is after doing this remake film, they just never acknowledged Mel Brooks who was responsible for the original film. It was only much later when probably the film was all wrapped up that they included Mel Brook's name in the making of the movie. Had he been in on it from the beginning, we wonder if this was the way the film would have gone. Would he have suggested casting differently? Would he have given the script a bit of a lift? We don't know but we would like to think that is the way it would have been. Because he might just have been the one person who would have helped fill those huge shoes of the first Get Smart.