Tv serial gets screen-smart

While younger audiences may not be acquainted with Maxwell Smart, they are familiar with its running jokes, such as talking to shoes and the usual "Sorry about that, boss" quips, which form much of mainstream humour today.

Steve Carell breathes new life into the character, giving Smart a spiffy makeover to fit him in the 21st century. Gone are Smart's revolver and heavily pressed suits. He now uses an automatic and wears a tailor-made wardrobe.

Anne Hathaway's character, Agent 99, is also more forceful and glamorous than the original, played by Barbara Feldman.

These changes are welcome. After all, it has been 50 years since Don Adams immortalised the show that gave its creators, Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, their big break in Hollywood.

Brooks went on to make "The Producers", "Young Frankenstein" and "Silent Movie", while Henry went on to make "Heaven Can Wait".

It was their spoof, on James Bond and spy films of the Sixties, that drew fans from the world over. Like music, comedy is universal and timeless.

"Get Smart" had such a following they made a movie called "Nude Bomb" in 1980 that brought back the old cast and Vittorio Gassman as a nutty villain.

The new "Smart" movie has a bigger cast that includes Alan Arkin as Max's boss, Terence Stamp as an obnoxious fiend and James Caan as a goofy president. There is also a small cameo by Bill Murray.

Good as they are, the show mainly belongs to Carell and Hathaway, who show that they are the new masters of comedy.

Carell has risen to the fore, and deservingly so, after brilliant roles in "Liar, Liar" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin".

Hathaway with "Princess Diaries" and "The Devil Wears Prada" is also one of the more interesting young players to break into movies in the past decade.

The new Smart is also up to date with language, especially the use of profanity. Prudish viewers are advised to stay home.

WANTED

Thank goodness, Hollywood had the sense to bring in brilliant Kazakh-Russian director Timur Bekmambetov for "Wanted".

Left to the politically correct hands of lesser film-makers, "Wanted" could have suffered a quick death at the box office.

The tough, gritty and often comical touches by Bekmambetov and his sterling cast, which includes James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman, have supercharged this fantasy action flick.

Everything about "Wanted" appears and feels fresh and stunning, even if it has been adapted from a comic book - graphic novel to snobs.

It avoids looking like a glorified video game, even though none of the action sequence can be termed as realistic.

The cars flip and fly through the air like they have lives of their own. Bullets curve to avoid unintended targets and the hero can fall off a deep ravine and live. Hundreds of passengers die when a mad shoot-out takes place aboard a train.

Such fantastic scenes might have alarmed prudish quarters, but Bekmambetov is not from central United States.

Unlike some people who say action movies cause violent crime, he knows it is probably a result of bad parentage.

Scottish actor McAvoy, 29, who rose to fame in "The Last King of Scotland", plays the accountant who finds out that his genetic make-up is that of a hired assassin.

Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie recruit him into their band of killers and prepares him to face their deadliest threat, a rogue agent.

What happens is almost predictable, but the acting and cinematography is so astonishingly wonderful, you put up with the silliness.

Please do not take this film seriously or people will laugh at you.