From last week's review to this week is only a short span of seven days, but we go from reviewing a movie about a popular Super Hero to a movie about a classic Super Zero.

If you were looking for a movie about heroes with web-spinning ability, huge, green muscles or Marvelous men in iron suits, well, "Sorry about that, Chief!"

Instead, this week's movie is about one of the free world's top fictional secret agents.

What if I told you it was a new James Bond film? Then... would ya believe... Matt Helm or Derek Flint foiling threats from around the globe. Nope, this movie is based on a 1960s television series.

Would you believe "I Spy" or "The Man from U.N.C.L.E" (that show actually starred two agents; shouldn't it have been called ...."MEN from...)?

Nope. This week's movie is based on Mel Brooks and Buck Henry's hilarious comedy, "Get Smart," where CONTROL agent Maxwell Smart, portrayed by Don Adams, spoofed the popular secret agent genre that crept through the Cold War era.

In director Peter Segal's 2008 version, we find "The Office" star Steve Carell pretty well cast as Smart, teaming up with a perfect fit of Anne Hathaway in the Agent 99 role that Barbara Feldon made famous.

And if Edward Platt were alive today, he, himself, could not have picked a better chief than Alan Arkin.

While the movie doesn't really live up to the hilarity of the TV show, it is well acted and quite entertaining and should please those movie goers wishing to see a good comedy about spies.

But for the purists who believe that Max was the standard by which all television slapstick should be measured, the movie could (and should) have been just another spy comedy without using the "Get Smart" premise.

Let's start with the relationship between Max and Agent 99. The movie has Agent 99 as the self-assured female partner, an experienced agent leading Max on his first mission as a full-fledged field operative.

While the TV show had Agent 99 always pretending to be the poor, defenseless little secret agent damsel in distress, a willing pupil to Max's constant experience and wisdom, imparted with such wit that could only come from the minds of Mel Brooks and Buck Henry (yes, kids, Henry was a somebody even before "Saturday Night Live").

The television Max was clumsy, inept and awkward, and yet, in the movie, Max can be seen ballroom dancing in perfect synchronicity with a charming partner. What's up with that?

And although the crossbow/Swiss Army Knife was one of the funniest scenes in the movie, the other gadgets in the storyline were hardly worth the trouble, and I was so glad when they finally had to turn to the old "telephone in the shoe" trick.

The clever nods to the original show, in the guise of museum pieces like the shoe phone, the '60s suit and tie and the convertible sports car (a 1965 Sunbeam Tiger) were all nice touches, but the beloved "cone of silence" bit was not that funny and really weakly done, special effects-wise.

The other nod to the original, a cameo by Bernie Kopell (the original Siegfried) was a nice touch and with most of the other original cast long gone, it was pleasing to see at least one original cast member in attendance (Brooks and Henry were also a part of this movie, but apparently not a big enough part).

The movie was big on "Boom!" (what would you expect with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as one of the secret agents?), and low on "Ha-Ha."

The action was there throughout, but the slapstick, Stooges-like comedy was, for the most part, missing. The wise cracks were few and far between and a lot of the comedy was nowhere near the "Naked Gun" level.

My old movie buddy, Faith Burchett, brought her friends and sister to the same showing, and being a huge fan of "The Office," Faith was very pleased with the movie.

Her friends Kelley Spangler and Erin Midkiff also liked the movie really well, but they probably weren't hugely familiar with the original series, either. Her little sister, Gracie, thought it was a great movie and a lot of fun.

Like I said, standing on its own, it was a pretty good comedy, but for those who go and are expecting to see Maxwell Smart reborn...well...

It seems that, in this adaptation, they "...missed it by THAT much...."

Billy Summers is a freelance photographer who reviews films for the Putnam Herald. He can be reached at summers855@zoominternet.net.

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