Get Smart, the new movie starring Steve Carell, may share a name and concept with the iconic 1960s television series about a bumbling Cold War spy, but beyond that, this frivolous and unamusing mess so mangles its source material that it doesn’t deserve to be called an homage.

The plot is a mishmash of old spy movies. The first act, in which remnants of the television series make appearances (Smart’s long walk down a corridor of opening and closing doors, Agent 13 in clever disguises), evokes nostalgia. The second act, however, plays like a James Bond film, dragging our hero from Moscow’s Red Square to downtown Los Angeles in a series of ever-escalating stunt sequences.

KAOS is at it again. Intent on distributing nuclear weapons to every interested rogue nation, the evil crime syndicate led by Siegfried (Terance Stamp) attacks the U.S. spy agency, CONTROL, and takes out all of its agents. All, that is, except for veteran Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway), who has recently had plastic surgery to conceal her identity, and Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell), a desk analyst who is promoted because, frankly, the Chief (Alan Arkin) has no one else to send.

Though Max’s lack of field training infuriates his sexy partner, who has recently broken off a relationship with superstar Agent 23 (Dwayne Johnson), his unbridled enthusiasm and endless reservoir of gadgets somehow manages to thwarts KAOS’ plans for world domination.

Get Smart is one gigantic misfire. The whole thing feels thrown together over the course of a long weekend. Rather than revisiting the satirical gags and witty one-liners that made the beloved spy spoof so memorable, ham-handed director Peter Segal’s generic remake relies on a half-formed story that flows about as smoothly as a cesspool, non sequitur punch lines in search of jokes, the now-standard juvenile potty humor, and action that seems just a bit too intense for its source material.

Carell is smart enough to remake Maxwell Smart in his own image rather than imitate Don Adam’s original. Both men share a barely disguised lack of confidence and a flustered poise that works, more or less, though Carell’s Max is less a clumsy, awkward, dim-witted nincompoop and more a man simply in over his head. This still renders him a doofus, but makes him far less lovable. Hathaway’s 99, on the other hand, is reborn for a new century. No longer simply the brighter of the pair, 99’s body is now a lethal weapon — in more ways than one — perhaps pushing some people’s idea of what is appropriate in a film sure to draw children (let’s just say Entrapment’s Catherine Zeta Jones has some competition).

Get Smart is neither fun nor playful. Half the time, it takes itself too seriously, unwilling to let itself in on the joke. It bears little to no relation to the original Mel Brooks/Buck Henry creation that has delighted audiences for nearly 50 years. This time around, it’s not Max who plays the part of the incompetent dunderhead…it’s the filmmakers.

© Copyright 2008 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.