Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. This week I’ve seen both comedies hitting screens tomorrow. First I saw Peter Segal’s GET SMART starring Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway and a day later I saw Mike Myers’ return to film, THE LOVE GURU. Let’s start with GET SMART. My background with the original show isn’t extensive, but I watched episodes in random order on Nick At Night as a kid. It was Get Smart, The Monkees, Green Acres, Bewitched and Mr. Ed for me. It helped that my parents loved Get Smart (while my mom was a huge Monkees fan… and the other shows were up to me to watch by my lonesome). I loved Don Adams on the show, loved his delivery and loved the playful gags. I haven’t revisited the show since my childhood, though. I didn’t realize how much nostalgia I had for it until I was sitting in the theater and the orchestral version of the TV Theme song came on during the opening credits. Warner Bros have done a lot of con coverage of this film. I’ve seen pieces of the movie in San Diego and San Francisco at Comic-Con and WonderCon and even had an edit bay visit with Peter Segal a few months back. It’s a little difficult when you see so much footage out of context to judge the final film. I had seen perhaps 80% of the jokes in the movie by the time I saw the full film, so stuff that worked on me the first time around I still liked, but it wasn’t fresh. You get that when they play a trailer over and over and over again sometimes and you recognize funny moments, but if it’s the 5th or 6th time you see a joke it’s bound to not be as funny. That’s not me excusing jokes falling flat, by the way. They still worked for me, it’s just not the same as seeing them all fresh. What was fresh to me was the chemistry between Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway. If the casting of the movie had gone a different route then I’d probably be here today saying that this film is forgettable, another one to add to the pile of TV turned movie bad ideas. But all across the board Segal cast the film with great personalities. Terence Stamp as Siegfried is great… menacing, elegant… and yes, cartoony. Giving him Borat’s naked fat friend for a sidekick was a great addition. They also fill CONTROL’s HQ with interesting people including Dwayne Johnson as Agent 23, who is all swagger and charisma in the movie, Terry Crews, David Koechner, Masi Oka and Patrick Warburton who has a very bit part coming in at the end of the movie in a way that actually has me wanting a sequel. But there are three people the movie hinges upon: Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway and Alan Arkin. If those three had turned down the movie, then the rest would have crumbled. It’s not about the story here… it’s pretty standard stuff… fish out of water, bad guy holds the government up for ransom, hero must stop bad guy and henchmen. What makes the film work is watching these characters play and if the audience is having half the amount of fun Carell and Hathaway are obviously having up on the screen then it’s a win win scenario. And Alan Arkin makes everything gel. I’m so glad he plays a bigger part in the movie than just “cut to: CONTROL HQ.” If they make a sequel, I hope it involves Arkin more, bringing him in to be the third part of Carell and Hathaway’s team. Carell plays his part with much ease. Sure, it’s not all that different from what you’d expect from him, but it’s so much better seeing him in this world than someone trying to imitate Don Adams or someone who has half the comedy charisma that Carell has. He gives us a few nods to Adams (some of which you’ve seen… the “missed it by… that much” line from the trailer), but doesn’t make his role a caricature. Anne Hathaway… le sigh… Gorgeous, funny, ass-kicking. She’s everything that Barbara Feldon embodied in the TV show, but in a whole different way. They couldn’t have found a better 99. All in all, it’s a fun flick with a cast that should demand your attendance just by itself. Now let’s look at THE LOVE GURU… Listen, I like Mike Myers’ schtick. WAYNE’S WORLD was a big deal in my household as a young teen. I copied his lines and repeated them enough to get yelled at by mom to “stop talking about monkeys flying out of your butt!” And I saw all the Austin Powers movies in the theater. I liked the first one, loved the second one and was lukewarm on the third. I love the second one because of the introduction of Verne Troyer more than anything else. I wasn’t rooting for this one to fail… I chuckled at the first trailer when most were pinching their nose… mostly because midget jokes always, always, always work for me… but the end result is a movie that fell flat to me. It’s just an awkward movie. The jokes don’t fall flat as they just make you feel like you should be laughing because Myers is trying really, really hard. And because so much of it is typical Myers (not a bad thing, in my book) it feels a little like the Uncle at the reunion who got a laugh from his horny monkey joke at the last get-together so he does it again this year. You don’t want to make him feel bad, so there’s a polite laugh, but you know the second he starts it’s going to be a little painful watching him try so hard. Jessica Alba is cute, but vacant-eyed in the film. The only time she had any life was the crazy Bollywood dance number nods that open and close the film and that’s just because of she looks hot in the get-up, I think. I did laugh during the movie, I won’t give you the impression that I did not. There are two kinds of jokes that always, always work for me. Midget jokes and Fart Jokes. Always. I even laughed at the midget jokes in the last Uwe Boll turdfest. Unfortunately, the laughs I had in this one were few and far between. It’s far from the worst thing I’ve ever seen, but it’s completely forgettable… at least it was for me. Justin Timberlake, Verne Troyer and Romany Malco try their best, but the material’s just not there. Stephen Colbert, as a fresh-out-of-rehab announcer and Ben Kingsley as Guru Pitka’s cross-eyed mentor are probably the only ones who come out of this movie clean, sailing on their own rather large comic timing and talent. If you want a laugh this weekend go with Carell and Co. -Quint quint@aintitcool.com
