The Bottom Line

Get Smart

Directed by: Peter Segal
Starring: Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson, Alan Arkin, Terrence Stamp
Rated: PG-13 for some rude humor, action violence and language.
Parental Notes: This is a pretty soft PG-13. There's a shot of Mr. Carell with the seat of his pants torn off and some rather cartoony violence, and that's about it.

"Get Smart" is a great summer movie: it offers fun, silliness, humor, and action in doses large enough to be entertaining without overstaying their welcome. It's likely to appeal to a wide range of audiences, which makes it a choice for a good group outing. It's suitable for kids, but likely to entertain adults as well.

The story follows Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell), an analyst with the spy agency CONTROL. After years and years of trying to be promoted to field agent, Max gets his wish when an attack from CONTROL's nemesis, the evil organization KAOS, leaves CONTROL headquarters in ruins and agents around the world compromised. Max is promoted and assigned to work with the only other uncompromised agent, the beautiful and deadly Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway). 99 isn't pleased to be stuck with the new guy, but the two head off to track down the villains, who are threatening to set nuclear weapons off around the world. The resulting adventure is a mashup of buddy, romance, spy, and action movie cliches that manages to keep all the various elements from overwhelming each other.

Carell is spot on as Max, who is very competent except when it'd be funnier if he screwed up. Max can do plenty of amazing things, from losing 150 pounds so he can handle the fitness portion of the field agent exam to translating hours of surveillance footage and creating detailed reports that run hundreds of pages. But he can't do plenty of other things, like notice that a phone's cord is too short to reach the person he's throwing it at, or throw a grappling hook correctly. Carell makes Max believable as someone who has been striving for years to get where he is now, but is in a little over his head, and manages to make Max utterly self-confident without crossing the line and making him an arrogant jerk.

The secondary characters are all spot on as well. Hathaway is perfect as the mysterious and talented 99, Alan Arkin is in fine fettle as the head of CONTROL, Dwayne "don't call me The Rock anymore" Johnson is in his element as the hilarious and macho Agent 23, and Terrence Stamp glides through his role as the villainous Sigfried like a master dancer through a familiar pas de deux.

The great cast is supported by camera work and special effects worthy of the big-budget spy movies "Get Smart" is spoofing. There are explosions; chase scenes involving trains, planes, and SUVs; gunfights; fistfights; and even a chase scene that takes place in free fall. The stunts are breathtaking and the effects are spectacular -- doubly so since they are in a movie that is ostensibly a comedy rather than a straight-up spy thriller.

"Get Smart" is a movie that should satisfy both comedy fans and action fans. It's lighthearted, fun, and exciting without crossing the line into gratuitous violence or overly sophomoric stupidity. The talent and light touches on display here are to be commended.

The Incredible Hulk

Directed by: Louis Leterrier
Starring: Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, William Hurt, Tim Roth, Tim Blake Nelson
Rated: PG-13 for sequences of intense action violence, some frightening sci-fi images, and brief suggestive content.
Parental Notes: This is a pretty straightforward super-hero movie. Youngsters may find some sequences too intense, but there's very little blood. The most intense violence is between the Hulk and an equally unreal creature.

"The Incredible Hulk" has a lot stacked against it. It's opening just over a month after "Iron Man," which is an awesome superhero movie. It's directed by the same guy as the fairly terrible "The Transporter 2." Its screenwriter was responsible for the dreadful "Elektra." And it's only been five years since the Ang Lee-helmed "Hulk" movie, which waffled between superhero excess and quiet introspection without succeeding at either.

Surprisingly, "The Incredible Hulk" is a good movie. It is rebooting the franchise and starting from scratch rather than attempting to build on Le's film. The script was heavily re-written by star Edward Norton (who gave some of his other films the same treatment) and is very solid. The film gels reasonably well, and the performances range from pretty good to great.

The film opens, wisely, with a credits sequence that doubles as a series of flashbacks showing the Hulk's origins, then gets on with the story. Most filmgoers know how mild-mannered scientist Bruce Banner became The Hulk, so why rehash it? The film proper picks up in Brazil, where Bruce (Norton) has been hiding out, working in a soda factory and studying the non-violent martial art Aikido to control his aggression. His teacher also shows him to control his breathing and heart-rate. It must be working, because a little title tells us that it's been five months since the last "incident." Bruce is even on the trail of a cure for his condition with the help of "Mr. Blue," an internet friend.

Unfortunately, an accident in the factory leads to a drop of Bruce's blood getting into a bottle of soda, and when it kills a man in the US, word gets to the military folks looking to hunt Banner down. Soon General Ross (William Hurt) and his men, including a deadly fellow named Emile Blonsky (Tim Roth) on loan from the UK, show up on Bruce's doorstep. He manages to escape, but not before Hulking out.

This first scene with the Hulk is a masterful one. We barely get to see him at first, he's just a fist coming out of a shadow to grab someone or a silhouette throwing a huge cylinder at the soldiers chasing him. When we finally do see him, he doesn't disappoint. Sure, he's CGI rather than the awesome Lou Ferrigno (who has a cameo!), but CGI has come a long way since Ang Lee's rendition of the creature. If you loathe CGI on principle you probably won't care for the way the Hulk looks, but I was impressed.

Bruce is still desperate for a cure. Mr. Blue thinks he can help but needs the data from the original experiment that gave Bruce his condition, so Bruce heads North to the university where it all went down. He reunites with his old girlfriend Betty (Tyler), gets the data, and soon he and Betty are on the run from General Ross and Blonsky, who's been given a super-soldier serum so he can try to match up against the Hulk. Soon Blonsky has also been injected with some of Bruce's blood and become The Abomination, a ten-foot tall creature with spikes and a bad attitude who makes the Hulk look mellow and delicate by comparison.

The final battle runs a bit long unless you're really into watching two gigantic, vaguely-man-shaped beasts slug it out in the streets of new York -- but if you want wanton mayhem and destruction, it'll be right up your alley. The CGI creatures look pretty amazing when they're only sharing the screen with each other, which helps. Even the best CGI looks a bit weird next to humans on the screen.

Overall, "The Incredible Hulk" is a solid superhero movie. If you like the genre (think "Spider-Man," "X-Men," and "Iron Man"), then you'll probably enjoy it. If you are looking for introspection, character development, or realism, look elsewhere. Oh, and "Iron Man" fans, watch for the little indicators that this takes place in the same world. If Tony Stark's cameo is anything to go by, we'll be seeing more of the Hulk in theaters, possibly teamed up with our favorite billionaire.

You Don't Mess With the Zohan

Directed by: Dennis Dugan
Starring: Adam Sandler, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Rob Schneider, John Turturro
Rated: PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, language and nudity.
Parental Notes: There's little in the way of graphic nudity or violence here, the entire movie is very cartoonish. It is, however, very, very vulgar.

"You Don't Mess With The Zohan" is the latest film from Dennis Dugan, who directed last year's "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry," and the two films have some of the same issues. Both are brainless, vulgar comedies about serious issues -- gay marriage for "Chuck and Larry" and the Israel/Palestine conflict for "Zohan." Both contain oodles of stereotypes and are a mixed bag in terms of comedy.

The plot starts off straightforward: Zohan (Adam Sandler) is the top man in the Israeli army, able to catch bullets in his bare hands and defeat Palestinian terrorists with ease -- and he's a big hit with the ladies as well. But underneath it all, he has a dream: to go to America and become a hair stylist. So he fakes his death, making it look like his Palestinian equivalent, Phantom (John Turturro) has managed to kill him, and smuggles himself to the States -- but he can't get away from his old life. A Palestinian cab driver (Rob Schneider) spots him and becomes determined to be the one to bring him down.

Zohan manages to get hired at a rundown salon in a bad part of town, but turns the place around when the old women who come there start telling their friends about the hot new guy who styles their hair, flatters them, and then schtupps them in the back room. Sandler has absolutely zero shame, which is vital for his role. Half the jokes in the film seem to involve Sandler thrusting his well-padded crotch at various people. He's completely invested, which makes the humor work if you're willing to ignore all taste and decorum. If you're not, however, it won't help a bit. Sure, there are some jokes that really work (one of Zohan's coworkers becoming inured to the screaming and wall-shaking from Zohan's post-styling sessions with his clients is quite funny), but there are quite a few that don't.

Surprisingly late in the film, a new element is introduced: an evil developer who wants to raze the neighborhood Zohan has settled in. He tries raising people's rents so they have to leave, but that doesn't work, so then he tries hiring a gang of thugs to incite a war between the Palestinian and Israeli sides of the street. Matters are complicated when Phantom finds out Zohan is still alive and shows up to take him down permanently.

"Zohan" has an ultimately positive message, that we're all basically the same underneath. Unfortunately, it also seems to be preaching the idea that here in the US, warring cultures can leave all their conflicts behind. It doesn't have anything to say about the folks who are still in their homelands, though. Zohan and his friends don't take this new revelation back to Israel to help their countries end the conflict, but settle into peaceful lives here. Maybe the message Sandler and company are promoting is that Israelis and Palestinians should all come to the States?

But I'm falling into the trap of trying to take a movie full of penis jokes and sexually-rapacious-for-the-sake-of-comedy old women and have it actually carry a real message. The filmmakers seem to want to have their cake and eat it too, to make a brainless comedy about something important. If you can set aside any taste and any strong feelings about the years of death and destruction the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, you may be able to enjoy "You Don't Mess With the Zohan" to the fullest. But if, like me, you can't, you may find yourself laughing at some of the jokes, and embarrassed by the rest.