A couple statistics from the "Get Smart" movie I finally got around to seeing this afternoon.
Number of times Steve Carell directly quotes Don Adams: 4
Number of times Anne Hathaway shows her underwear: 3
Number of lines Terrence Stamp has: 20 or so
Number of lines deserving an actor of Terrence Stamp's stature: 0
Number of kicks/slaps/paintball pellets to the nuts: 5
Number of staples to the head: 2
Number of fat jokes: Lost count
and finally...
Number of people Steve Carell kills: 5
Huh? Yeah. Steve Carrell guns down four people and sets another character on fire before a train hits him. Is it just me, or is this a major misunderstanding of the basic premise of the movie?
No one says action and comedy is easy, and all in all "Get Smart" was a decently entertaining if extremely light weight piece of summer fare. But the first time Maxwell Smart draws his gun and SHOOTS A GUY, I was a little shocked. I didn't know this movie was prepared to go that far, but that's the thing - it's not. It doesn't push any spy conventions, doesn't go anywhere unexpected or do anything to threaten the goofy aesthetic except have Steve Carrell casually gun down some bad guys. Given he spends the first fourth of the movie trying to get his superiors to understand "bad is what they do, not who they are" concerning their enemies, the movie betrays itself with a hero murdering in the line of duty.
It makes me think that audiences don't give that sort of thing a second thought.
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