Get Smart

 (2008)

Get Smart Blu-ray delivers great video and solid audio in this enjoyable Blu-ray release
Maxwell Smart is on a mission to thwart the latest plot for world domination by the evil crime syndicate known as KAOS. When the headquarters of U.S. spy agency Control is attacked and the identities of its agents compromised, the Chief has no choice but to promote his ever-eager analyst Maxwell Smart, who has always dreamt of working in the field alongside stalwart superstar Agent 23. Smart is partnered instead with the only other agent whose identity has not been compromised: the lovely-but-lethal veteran Agent 99. As Smart and 99 get closer to unraveling KAOS' master plan--and each other--they discover that key KAOS operative Siegfried and his sidekick Shtarker are scheming to cash in with their network of terror. Given little field experience and even less time, Smart--armed with nothing but a few spy-tech gadgets and his unbridled enthusiasm--must defeat KAOS if he is to save the day.

For more about Get Smart and the Get Smart Blu-ray release, see the Get Smart Blu-ray Review

Starring: Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson, Alan Arkin, Terence Stamp, Ken Davitian
Director: Peter Segal

» See full cast & crew

Get Smart Blu-ray Review

Reviewed by Sir Terrence, November 25, 2008

From the opening scenes you know there are some stark differences between the television series Get Smart, and this movie. On the other hand you also can see some of the television series touches incorporated into this movie, so there is a nice enough balance between the two to keep it familiar with the television series, to the fans, and making it fresh as well. The chemistry between Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway is very palpable and genuine, so there is nothing forced here. But as fun and entertaining these two are to watch together, this movie seem slow and ponderous in places, which makes it seem like you have been to the party much too long. They could have trimmed ten to fifteen minutes from this movie and still maintained the story line, but increased the pace. To me, this seems like an editing issue that sort of gives the movie iron boots in some places. However, the performances of each of the actors are quite frankly terrific from the top down. Even the actors with no lines added a nice nuance to action and comedy.

Released on June 20, 2008, Get Smart did big numbers at the box office. With a budget of $80 million, it went on to gross a box office total of $230.5 million dollars world wide in spite of mixed reviews from both critics, and audiences alike. On July 1, 2008, a direct to video companion movie Get Smart's Bruce and Lloyd: Out of Control was released on DVD along with a seven minute Itunes download. It received a 53% from Rottentomatoes review site, with Roger Ebert giving it a positive review, and the television series creator Mel Brooks sharing that sentiment. Despite my opinions on its length, the movie was quite fun and entertaining, but my favorite scene in this movie has to be the "Dance Sequence", which was to say the least, hilarious.



Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) is a bumbling and clumsy top analyst for the organization CONTROL, and hopes to be an agent like his hero Agent 23 (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. In spite of the fact that Max has done well on his tests, Chief of Control (Alan Arkin) believes that Max is better for CONTOL in his current position. When CONTROL comes under attack by its arch enemy KAOS under the control of Siegfried (Terence Stamp), many agents are either killed or exposed. Max is called into service as Agent 86 and is assigned to work with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway). Agent 99 recently had plastic surgery, so her identity remains a secret to KAOS, but agent 23 and other agents that survived are relegated to desk duty.

Max and Agent 99 are sent to Russia to determine how KAOS gets their hands on Nuclear weapons. While there, they begin to discover they have feelings for each other, but 99 does not want to be involved with another agent. Meanwhile Max and 99 enter a bakery understood to be a Nuclear weapons facility, and plant bombs to bury the weapons. Chief send 23 to Moscow to clean up the mess, and when he arrives, he finds no bombs, and folks begin to think Max is a double agent.

Siegfried reveals he has distributed the bombs to various dictators, and demands $200 billion dollars or he will give the dictators the activation codes. But as Max and 99 continue to work the case, they discover the possibility that the destruction of CONTROL was possibly an inside job

Get Smart Blu-ray, Video Quality

 

Get Smart bumbles onto the Bluray format in a nice 1080p/VC-1 encoded transfer with a 1:85:1 aspect ratio that overall is very pleasing, but not without some small issues. From the start the print master is completely devoid of any film based blemishes. Colors are spot on, natural, balanced and well saturated without any bleeding or chroma noise. Black levels are very deep and inky, to the point of being crushed in very dark scenes. Shadow detail was lacking in some scenes, with details being submerged into the black murk of the crush. Contrast is also a problem, with some scenes looking just a little hot to these eyes. Detail and fine detail overall is quite good in both the foreground and background. There is a fine grain structure that remains very consistent throughout the film, with no sign of DNR or additional processing to be found. Flesh tones are spot on, with no rosy faces or skewed tones. I did notice some small cases of edge enhancement, and even a very rare occurrence of aliasing on some clothing, but overall the picture quality is very good with all minor quibbles put aside.

Get Smart Blu-ray, Audio Quality

 

Once again Warner has chosen not to include a lossless track, so we are presented with a Dolby Digital track encoded at a steady 640kbps that is quite frankly not bad. To the good points; dialog is very clear and clean and never sounds crowded out by music or sound effects. The frontal sound stage is wide and pretty active, but is truncated in depth as it never reaches my front wall. Trevor Rabin's score is nicely recorded, and provides some bleed into the surrounds in some scenes occasionally giving it a open quality when called on. The surrounds are used to create a pretty consistent low level ambience, but you need a very quiet room to clearly hear it. They are also used extensively to support the front channels by pulling the mix into the room on some scenes. There is quite of bit of low level split surround activity which can give the rear surround field a bit of dimension, and there is also at point's very nifty back wall information as well. The LFE channel is used solely for augmenting explosions, as the mixes overall bass is in the main three front channels. Now on to the issues that bothered me; the frontal hemisphere sounds fractured from the rear hemisphere. They do not create a complete sense of a sound field, it sounds fractured and disjointed. The use of lossy Dolby Digital causes everything to pool around the speakers, with no phantom use of the side walls. This mix does not have the open, broad, coherent, airy sound field that most lossless tracks can have. A lossless codec would have helped this mix greatly, but I was not displeased totally at what I heard. I really wish Warner would get on board with lossless, as they are the only studio not including them on many of their releases.

Get Smart Blu-ray, Special Features and Extras

 

Get Smart has a fair amount of extra material, but I confess most of it is a waste of disc space. All extras are in standard definition video with stereo audio with the exception of the Comedy Optimization mode with is in HD.

"Smart Takes" Alternate Scenes :With the use of branching, we are treated with about 50+ minutes of alternate takes and deleted scenes while the feature is playing.

"The Old "I Hid it in the Movie Trick" (9minutes) has Nate Torrence and Masi Oka commenting on references from the television series sprinkled throughout the movie.

"The Right Agent for the Right Job" (10 minutes) features the cast and crew talking about the casting of Max and 99. There is also a behind the scenes look at my favorite part of this movie, the dance sequence.

"Max in Moscow" (6 minutes) gives a brief glimpse at the on location shooting in Moscow.

"Language Lessons" (3 minutes) is a brief and quite frankly not so humorous segment on languages featuring Steve Carell.

"The Vomit Reel" (5 minutes) is various takes of Steve Carell vomiting on the jet on the way to Moscow. This was funny stuff in my opinion.

"Spy Confidential" Gag Reel (5 minutes) is just what is says, a gag reel, as if there weren't enough of this.

"The Making of Get Smart's Bruce and Lloyd Out of Control" (3 minutes) takes us behind the scenes at this direct to video release.

Also included among the extras is a DVD game entitled "Get Smart: KAOS Out of Control". This just didn't hold my attention at all, but I admit I am not a big fan of DVD games. Lastly we are gifted with a Digital Copy of the movie for playback on both the PC and Mac.

Get Smart Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation

 

In spite of my earlier contention this movie was just a bit too long; I still had a good time watching it. The entire cast was great in this movie, but the chemistry between Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway is unmistakable. There was enough of the television series in this movie to definitely identify that it is Get Smart, but the movie is not trapped by the series, and has some pretty good flips on its own. While I am very disappointed that Warner didn't think to include a lossless soundtrack (a huge mistake in my opinion) this overall is a solid release, with enough extra material to keep you busy for a while. This movie is a buy for me (click through Bluray.com link to Amazon), but for you purists, you made want to rent this. This is not your father's Get Smart.

As the Blu-ray sales gain momentum, you will continue to see more and more classic films being brought to the high definition format. Studios love selling the same film to you multiple times, and cashing in on Blu-ray is a concrete part of their strategy. Today ...

Warner Home Video has announced the technical specs and special features for the upcoming Blu-ray release of 'Get Smart', which is due to hit store shelves on November 4th, day-and-date with the DVD release. The three-disc set will feature 1.85:1 1080 VC-1 video ...

Warner Home Video has revealed that they will bring the Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway comedy 'Get Smart' to Blu-ray on November 4th, day-and-date with the DVD release. No technical specs have been announced at this time. The only known extras at this time are ...

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