Smart Card Access Control

Never let it be said that the right actor can't save a movie, particularly after watching Steve Carrel's performance in "Get Smart," a film that is never as funny as it should be but never ceases to be enjoyable. Mostly this is due to Carrell, who exudes such likability as Maxwell Smart, the bumbling secret agent, that you can't help at least go along for the ride.

The film is based on the 60's T.V. show of same name where Smart, as the ill-equipped by fiercely earnest Agent 86, tried to outwit Russian foes at the height of the Cold War. Here, the action picks up with Smart in his early days with CONTROL, a CIA-like organization supposedly deactivated at the end of the Cold War but still operational deep underneath Washington, D.C., accessible only through a serious of elaborate steel doors and a phone booth elevator. Smart is a pencil pusher who specializes in deciphering taped conversations for intelligence, which he finds in the smallest bits of information. Scenario 1: two terrorists have a conversation where muffins are mentioned. Smart's deduction: "Muffins are comfort food. Why would they eat comfort food unless they were nervous about something?"

Smart dreams of being a field agent, which he gets promoted to when the CONTROL headquarters is bombed by their Russian counterpart, CHAOS, and most of the CONTROL agents are eliminated. Smart is sent to Russia on a mission with the beautiful Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway), who hates, then mildly dislikes, then kinda likes, then may have to betray Smart, a lovelorn loser who is in all ways incapable of not hitting on 99 at whatever moment.