Very disappointing...

Don't Believe the Hype

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Zany research and development duo Nate Torrence (as Lloyd) and Masi Oka (as Bruce) head up a hilarious "Get Smart" movie off-shoot about the "KAOS" ensuing over an invisibility cloak. Not convinced? Well... Would you believe Warner Brothers spins-off a couple of funny lines and situations leftover from their almost simultaneously released "Get Smart" movie re-make? No? Okay... How about "Get Smart's Bruce and Lloyd Out of Control" was accidentally green-lighted as a TV series pilot for the now defunct WB during a writer's strike? So, when the strike was over, they didn't know where to put it. Not buying it? I suggest we file this one under the "Cone of Silence" …^…^… ** Get Smart's Bruce and Lloyd Out of Control (7/1/08) Gil Junger ~ Nate Torrence, Masi Oka, Jayma Mays, Larry Miller

Two under-appreciated patriotic techno-weinies, including Masi Oka, that team up with the cute, but smelly, Jayma Mays to save the country is a recipe for success. Their ruthless overlord of a boss, played by comic legend Larry Miller, drains the joy from their otherwise pay-to-play careers at Control as they cope with a situation while the "real" agents 99 and 86 are out of the country on a mission. A spin off that starts with less talent than many major motion pictures successfully combines the time-tested formula of geeks-with-babes to forge an ode to the behind-the-scenes underdogs that, despite themselves, manage to save the day.

I never saw the "Get Smart" movie that this direct-to-video movie is spun off of, namely because I can't stand Steve Carell and that I never thought the original "Get Smart" TV show was all that funny. But the opportunity to see this for free came up, and I decided to give it a try. Though the events of this movie seem to be playing at the same time of the events of the Carell movie, the events of this movie seemed pretty clear; you don't need to see the Carell movie to understand what's going on here.It's a harmless but mostly forgettable movie. Though there was something in this movie that bothered me. Though the characters of Bruce and Lloyd are partners, when it came down to a scene focusing on just one of them, 95% of these scenes were focused on Lloyd, not the Asian-American Bruce. Subtle racism? Maybe. On the other hand, Bruce is shown to have a girlfriend (who is Caucasian - rare for a movie to show such a male Asian / female Caucasian relationship), while the poor Lloyd is shown to be hopeless with women. Judge for yourself.

Not sure exactly how this came about, but my guess is that they had too much of Lloyd and Bruce to use in the movie, and instead of merely relegating these scenes to extras on the DVD, they wrote a story around the bits, filmed some new scenes and made a movie out of it. Yes, look closely, there's 9 zillion establishing shots of various buildings to fill it out, but hey, it was damn funny, these two hilarious guys got to be stars for a bit (and showed they could pull it off, which leads me to hope they get more to do in the Get Smart sequel), and we even got an uncredited Anne Hathaway cameo! Fun, silly, and I hope that they do another mini-movie to go with the Get Smart sequel!