Film

Get Smart

Name: Get Smart
Genre: Action, Comedy, Thriller
Released: 2008
Cast: Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson, Alan Arkin, Terence Stamp

Get Smart is a big, glossy make-over of the sixties spy spoof, trading deadpan absurdity for real stunts and a broader comic engine. Steve Carell's Maxwell Smart is endearingly earnest rather than idiotic, Anne Hathaway's Agent 99 does the heavy lifting, and the plot delivers genuine Bond-style set-pieces alongside the jokes. It's slick, likeable, and never quite as sharp as its source, but a fun popcorn night.

TMDb rating

6.2

If you liked this

Spy2015

Melissa McCarthy's deskbound analyst gets thrown into the field just like Max, but the jokes are filthier, the fights are for real, and Jason Statham steals every scene by parodying himself.

But The comedy leans hard into raunch and profanity, a tonal jump from Get Smart's more family-friendly gags.

Kingsman: The Secret Service2015

Same DNA of a scruffy nobody trained into a lethal super-spy, but Kingsman turns the volume up to eleven with stylised ultraviolence, sharp class satire, and a soundtrack that never lets up.

But The violence is far bloodier and more graphic than anything in Get Smart's PG-13 world.

True Lies1994

Arnold Schwarzenegger's secret agent hides his job from his own wife, and the film balances gigantic action set-pieces with genuinely funny marital comedy in a way that still holds up decades later.

But James Cameron's action scale dwarfs Get Smart's, and some of the marriage-comedy beats read a little dated now.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Spy Who Came In from the Cold1965

Get Smart spoofs the double-crosses, moral compromises and agency incompetence that this film treats as devastatingly real; watching it shows exactly what the joke is a joke about.

Richard Burton plays a burnt-out British agent used as a pawn in a brutal Cold War operation, stripped of gadgets, jokes, and any comfort — the grim, moral flip side of every spy joke Get Smart tells.

But It's bleak, slow, and deliberately joyless — the opposite of a fun night in, and it earns every bit of that despair.

The Spy Who Came In from the Cold poster

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery1997

The spy-spoof ancestor Get Smart is clearly borrowing from, all bad wigs, worse innuendo, and a villain plotting world domination with a hilariously undersized budget for evil.

But The humour is broader and cruder, built on repetition and innuendo rather than plot or character.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery poster

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!1988

Leslie Nielsen's deadpan idiocy is the comic engine Get Smart's tone owes a debt to, a relentless barrage of visual gags and one-liners from the Zucker brothers at their sharpest.

But There's almost no real plot or action to speak of, just joke after joke after joke.

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! poster

Johnny English2003no page yet

Rowan Atkinson's bungling agent is Get Smart's closest cousin in spirit, playing the incompetent-spy premise completely straight-faced and mining it for pure physical comedy rather than action spectacle.

But The stakes and stunts are much smaller, and some of the slapstick is broader than Get Smart's.

Central Intelligence2016

Dwayne Johnson again, this time as an over-eager CIA agent paired with a reluctant civilian, delivering the same buddy-action chemistry and self-aware silliness that made his Get Smart scenes so much fun.

But It leans harder into buddy-comedy sentimentality and warmth, with less actual spycraft or plotting than you might expect.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.2015

Another glossy update of a sixties spy show, this one trades comedy for pure style, all sharp suits and Cold War cool, with Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer playing rival agents forced to cooperate.

But It's much more deadpan and stylish than funny, so go in expecting cool rather than laughs.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith2005

Two secret agents unknowingly married to each other discover the truth, and the film wrings equal parts comedy and genuine action out of a marriage that turns into a professional rivalry.

But It's a slicker, sexier thriller overall, with much less outright gag-comedy than Get Smart delivers.

Archer2009

Same bumbling-agent-plus-capable-woman engine, rebuilt in animation with a much sharper, more adult satirical edge on agency bureaucracy and Cold War spy tropes.

An animated spy-agency farce that takes Get Smart's premise — a vain, incompetent field agent surrounded by far more competent women — and sharpens it into some of the fastest, filthiest dialogue on television.

But It's far raunchier and more cynical than Get Smart, and the joke-a-minute pace can feel exhausting in large doses.

North by Northwest1959

This is the granddaddy of the 'ordinary man mistaken for a spy' premise Get Smart plays for laughs — Hitchcock invented the wit-under-pressure template decades before anyone thought to spoof it.

Cary Grant's ordinary ad man gets mistaken for a spy and swept into an international plot he barely understands, all delivered with the same quick, charming banter and set-piece spectacle that spy-comedy has been chasing ever since.

But It's a straight thriller, not a comedy, and its pacing and style are unmistakably of their era.