Get Smart started out life as a television series over forty years ago and i was aware of this and had seen episodes from the tv show before watching this film version.
I have to say the film version greatly improves on the original tv show and is far more entertaining. I look forward to the recently announced sequel.
The film isn't perfect but it's fun and never tries to be too smart if i can use that term. The cast are all likeable and it was fun watching Alan Arkin onscreen again. Arkin is a fantastic actor who plays these kinds of roles superbly. General Zod ( Terence Stamp ) played the bad guy and seemed to be having fun with his part. I don't like the UK or American editions of The Office but i thought Steve Carell was perfect casting for the role of Agent 86 Maxwell Smart and he played the role nicely.
Anne Hathaway was simply gorgeous and is also a good actress and she was a welcome addition to this film. She and Steve Carell get to do a spoof of the laser manoueveres scene from Entrapment. Dwayne Johnston aka The Rock showed some nice comedy touches but i wish he would get back to doing action films, now he has a contract with Disney he mostly does family films. You may notice a brief cameo from Bill Murray and James Caan. Caan of course starred opposite Alan Arkin in the seventies film Freebie and the Bean.
I thought the image quality of this 1.85:1 aspect ratio film was very good. The movie was mostly shot digitally with the Panavision Genesis camera although the Panavision Panastar and low grain 35mm film was used for some scenes. I think what is on this blu ray disc resembles what was seen at cinema's and i think it's a good transfer. I didn't see anything i would consider an issue. Some scenes near the end involving the plane and car chase are softer looking but i believe that's got more to do with the way the effects were shot than the actual transfer.
Warner have not provided a lossless audio track for this release which is just plain wrong. Sound quality is ok but i felt a lossless track may have added a bit more oomph to explosions and more authority to the soundstage. I hope Warner put lossless audio on all their future releases.
This is a region free release and i believe the same transfer is used all over the world.
View blu ray screencaps of Get Smart below. Click again for the Full HD image.
Oh no! Panavision Genesis! Does this have the same ghastly looking dodgy like Eastenders look when images are moving around it looks like it was filmed on video camera like those Crime Story TV show of the 80’s.
I’m just reminded by how horrible Collateral looked and Public Enemies and 2012 that used Panavision Genesis and it is a no in dark scenes it looks horrible. So does this, this is my question does this have the same look or have they improved on it so it doesn’t look like video, I have nothing against filming something that is made up of light and shadow.
I think The X Files I want to Believe used a few scenes that was shot in digital HD and the rest of the film was shot on photochemical 35mm. X-Files didn’t look as distracting in DOLBY digital projection but the other films that I have seen on DVD and bluray just made me cringe in the darker scenes.
The screen captures look neat which ones are 35mm and HD?
I thought this one looked good, it didn’t look like Eastenders to me, Collateral didn’t use the Genesis camera, it partially used a Sony CineAlta 900 camera and the night shot scenes were filmed using the Thomson Viper which is well known for producing usable images in low level light.