A Complete Embarrassment!!!!

I so agree, the characterization of 99 was extremely obnoxious. The way they dealt with Max and 99's relationship was terrible, one second she can't stand him and then out of nowhere, practically, she's suddenly in love with him.

With Max, they made him completely pathetic. In the original Max could not only speak 5 languages, he was a trained karate expert, and he also had a great track record (except for a few cases that he bungled). Steve Carrell's version of Max was kind of unlikeable.

I kind of wonder if anyone involved had seen the original. It's like the writers of the movie just looked up the description of it online and then wrote a movie off of that description.

Plus Carell did not use the trademark voice that Maxwell Smart has.

In response to your point about Mel Brooks, Buck Henry, and Leonard Stern being creative consultants, here is something written by the creator of the official Get Smart website.

"The massive WB publicity/spin machine really worked overtime to try and disguise the facts of this case. Unlike other sites that claim to bring you cool movie news, I don't change the facts or my opinion in order to score sneak previews and exclusive interviews, so this is the straight story. It's also a matter of public record if anyone actually checked out things before printing them anymore.

In a purely financial move dictated by studio lawyers, Warner Brothers claimed that Mel and Buck created the show as a "work-for-hire" for Talent Associates, and therefore did not deserve credit or any financial compensation for creating the show. The legal eagles behind this move forbid any contact between the movie's creative team and Stern, Brooks, or Henry. When the movie began shooting on March 21, 2007 this edict was still in effect. The script, direction, and characterization were all completed with ZERO input from Brooks, Henry, or Stern. Brooks and Henry hired noted intellectual property lawyer Marc Toberoff, who has made a career of beating WB. The case went to the Writers' Guild, who naturally ruled against Warner Brothers. Despite losing, or maybe spitefully losing, lawyers continued to prevent the movie's creative team from contacting the show's original creative team. If you read the press release sent out to announce the start of production of the movie, there's not a single mention of Brooks and Henry, let alone Leonard Stern. Then, on April 11th, Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere released the story of the snubbing and lawsuit as a rumor substantiated by a very reliable anonymous source. The negative backlash was immediate and intense. Within 48 hours of Wells' bombshell, Warner Brothers signed a deal with Mel and Buck to be "creative consultants" to the movie. However, the script had been completed and over three weeks of principal photography had been completed, so their input was not major, nor did they have any say in the creation of the script or the movie, as there was NO CONTACT between the original creative team and the movie's creative team until April 12th at the earliest."

Here is another interesting excerpt from the creator of WouldYouBelieve.com. On how they created many of the characters.

"Larabee and Siegfried? Pathetic. After mentioning that they weren't in the first draft script I read, I was told that Peter Segal excitedly told several people to let me know that I should be excited too because they had added Larabee, Siegfried, and Hymie. No, what Segal did was take characters already in the script and give them the name of Get Smart characters. In fact, since I have several versions of the script, that's exactly what they did with Siegfried and Shtarker. The villains were just written as villains and given names of basketball players with no effort made to create an original or interesting villain, let alone one that resembled Siegfried. All they did was use the "Replace" key in Word and switched names. Did the writers of The Dark Knight just write a generic villain and then name him the Joker? Of course not. Larabee as a mean bully? Larabee and Agent 91 as dumb, rude guys who insulted their co-workers instead of working with them? Please. Just awful, with dialogue out of King Frat. Saying the movie Larabee and the show's Larabee were the same because both were dumb CONTROL agents is like saying Mark Texiera and and Marv Throneberry are the same because both are first basemen. Siegfried was a completely generic villain with no charm or charisma, which is tough to do with such a great actor as Terence Stamp. A friend of mine called this movie's version of CONTROL a frat house, with it becoming Revenge of the Nerds and he is right, only Revenge of the Nerds was funny. They even did that with Hymie, having him suddenly become streetwise and bullying back the bullies. Hymie is an innocent and that innocence and naiveté was the source of his humor. If he had been a funny bully, that would have been great, but he was just a stupid bully, with nothing that set him apart other than being super-strong. The only portrayal that was true or had character was Bill Murray. However, they really could have made that role funny by giving the role to Dave Ketchum and playing up how "I've been in this tree for 40 years." Of course, that would have meant recognizing the original series so that concept was out."

You may enjoy Get Smart the movie, but there is no denying how terrible of a remake it was. The only similarities between the show and movie was the names of the characters and the fact that they worked for Control. I mean i'm not saying that it's got to be identical to the show but it should at least be half as funny. Personally I have never found a kick in the crotch funny. That is what I loved about the show, the style was so above that. They didn't need to rehash jokes from the original, but they could have kept the style of comedy the same.

I don't usually agree with the critics; but in this case I agreed whole heartedly.

" Staggeringly bad. It's a movie that spoofs intelligence in the most unintelligent way possible and stretches the boundaries of plot-free filmmaking into frontiers until now explored only by former cast members of 'Saturday Night Live.' Austin Powers is one of many reference points for a movie that also cribs from Entrapment, Fahrenheit 9/11 and the recent Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay without ever bringing anything new or comedically competent to the table. - Glenn Whipp, LA Daily News

" As a reworking of one of the great 1960s TV comedies, you'd think being funny would be its main goal. But you would be wrong. Very, very wrong. Like its protagonist, in-over-his-head secret agent Maxwell Smart, "Get Smart" yearns to be something it's not. Unaccountably eager to walk in the footsteps of James Bond, "Get Smart" neglects the laughs and amps up the action, resulting in a not very funny comedy joined at the hip to a not very exciting spy movie. Talk about killing two birds with one stone. One has to wonder what the late Don Adams, one of the people the film is dedicated to, would have thought of this concoction. If you've never experienced the pleasures of the original yourself, it's fair to say that brief clips available free on YouTube provide more laughs than this entire benighted enterprise. " - Los Angeles Times

" Remaking "Get Smart" for the big screen might have sounded like a bad idea, but the movie shows it to have been something else: a really bad idea. As it stands, "Get Smart," the movie, is an action comedy that represents the worst of both worlds. Like a bad action movie, it's bloated, confused and convoluted, relying too much on extended action sequences that are heavy on computer effects. And like the worst comedies, "Get Smart" is about as funny as a gently smiling mime. It couldn't buy a laugh in a nitrous oxide factory with a fistful of clown noses. " - San Francisco Chronicle

" 'Get Smart' got lost. Max Smart is played by the admirable Steve Carell, who is desperately looking for deadpan jokes in all the wrong places. His sidekick is played by the lissome Anne Hathaway, who also seems willing to go along with a gag if only she could find one. They are all strapped to a hurtling plot line that is heading from one fireball to the next, with only a few not-so-hot Bush-Cheney jokes to divert them. And us. " - Time

" This clumsy adaptation of the beloved espionage series stumbles more than its bumbling hero. Sadly, gags fall flat, one-liners lack pizzazz and the leads generate little chemistry. 'Get Smart' is just another big, dumb summer movie and should have heeded its title's advice. " - Matt Stevens, E! Reviews

"In this distressingly generic spy spoof, it's not Maxwell who's clueless, but the filmmakers. I knew the movie was in trouble when Smart is mistaken for a terrorist on an airplane and gets tackled by a security agent- it's almost identical to a gag in "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay," except this time it isn't funny. Director (Pete) Segal is a comedy specialist lacking any apparent sense of humor. Making 'Smart' smart is a classic example of missing the joke." - Newsweek

" Director Peter Segal dispenses with just about everything that made the series fun in the first place. Oh, the film credits Brooks and Henry as "Creative Consultants" (a likely story), and the script reluctantly trots out the catchphrases. But then it just throws them away. And in changing the IQ of the lead character, the movie ends up playing like a Pink Panther movie without the bungling Inspector Clouseau. If Max is no longer Max, why resurrect the property in the first place? We watch the movie version wondering whether anyone involved actually watched, liked, or cared about capturing the spirit of, the TV series. Segal (Anger Management, 50 First Dates, The Longest Yard) never finds a tone that both celebrates and updates the original. His neither-fish-nor-fowl approach leaves us in a limbo that's neither fresh nor nostalgic. And his climax, featuring explosions and a car chase, is monumentally unfunny. " - All Headline News

While looking the part, Darrell brings none of the original quirky style or voice I characteristics. His monotone was like a totally different character. A major disappointment