What Are the Odds on Get Smart Being Funny?

Is the spy-comedy concept played out after Austin Powers? We handicap the odds.
Steve Carell in Warner Bros. Pictures' 'Get Smart'
Warner Bros. Pictures
C. Robert Cargill

So it's my time to sit down with the oddsmaker and crunch the numbers on this summers big question mark: Get Smart. Will it be as funny as we hope, or just another blockbuster dud dropped in the dead heat of summer? Let's look at the numbers, shall we?

The concept. 4:1. For its time, Get Smart was an original, sharp family show. It was a James Bond parody that played with the concept of the world's most notorious spy actually being one of the most completely inept but thoroughly lucky buffoons to walk the face of the earth. And making sure the job got done was the smokin' hot Agent 99. So what's wrong with this? Mike Meyers already rode this joke until the wheels came off a few years ago. It was called Austin Powers. It might not work again.

The Cast: 2:1. The cast is by no means a collection of actors free from bombs. Steve Carell himself is still stinging from last year's craptastic summer squelcher of a turkey Evan Almighty. However, even in their wildest of turkeys, the members of this cast tend to be the very best thing about the movie. Just look at Duane Johnson in Be Cool. Despite the sheer lameness of that film, he shone through like a lighthouse beacon in a storm. And he was funnier than a rubber crutch. Each of these actors has roles like this. There isn't a weak link among them. And just how smokin' hot is Anne Hathaway as Agent 99?

The trailer. 1:1. Have you seen the second trailer? Holy crap is that thing funny. All the gags work. They reveal that agent 23 is being played for laughs and that they're really letting Alan Arkin go as Chief. If anything convinces you to see this, it will be the trailer. Trailers can lie, but this trailer is pure gold.

The director. 2:1. Peter Segal has had a slightly hit-or-miss career, but he's been on something of a hot streak lately. He took a typical, lame Adam Sandler romcom and made it remarkably funny and sweet with 50 First Dates. Then he remade a classic and took it in a completely different direction than the original in The Longest Yard. Both were films far funnier than expected. Factor in the classic, beloved comedy Tommy Boy and you almost forgive him forThe Nutty Professor II: The Klumps. Almost.

Overall odds: 2:1 on this being funny. Great cast, solid comedy director, convincing trailer. The odds are good.


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