The Nude Bomb

There were two remakes of Get Smart. The Nude Bomb came first and while keeping the premise of the TV show it virtually abandoned the story line of the series (if you remember Maxwell Smart had married 99, had twins, and lived in an average apartment). The Nude Bomb plays as a spoof of James Bond movies. James Bond films ALREADY are a spoof so that was a bad idea. The film didn't realize that the cold war was over. Terrible, terrible Turkey. Don Adams would reunite with most of the Get Smart gang in the much superior Get Smart...Again! which picks up the original story line as it has progressed in the future and spoofs the fact that the cold war and spy era is virtually over. Sorry about that Chief.

One of the poorest of the classic TV show adaptation movies. Lacks any of the heart of the original show. Only Don Adams, of the original show, was involved in this film. He reprises his Maxwell Smart character very well, but there's no humor in the script for him to work with.

The classic spy movies satire Get Smart provided the kind of jokes you could use as one-liners in everyday speech, and the pleasant nostalgia of remembering lines like "Missed it by that much," "Sorry about that, Chief," "Would you believe...," etc. still evoke a smile today. This movie had little of that humor, and a contrived storyline that tried but went nowhere. Worst of all: there were none of Admas's hilarious co-stars doing the agents 99, 13, Himey, and of course the Chief. Ed Platt, as the chief, had passed away by the time this was made, but they failed to even get one of the others.

The writing of failure was on the wall before they started. One has to wonder: why (beyond the obvious cash-in on the name, that is) did they do this? At least the word "bomb" was in the title to warn you.

Okay, I was 11 when I first saw The Nude Bomb -- it was on HBO, I taped it and watched it over and over and over and over again. A huge fan of Get Smart, yes, I was disappointed Don Adams was the only original from the series. But I do remember enjoying the film's opening - a spoof of the Bond-films, with women fawning over Smart as a hokey ballad played over the credits. And of course, Sylvia Kristel ... need I say more.

Having watched "Get Smart" and "Get Smart, Again!" I have finally laid my hands on this follow-up to the greatest TV-series spoof comedy of all times and it turned out just fine. Not as true to the original as "Again" was nine years after "The nube bomb" but still pretty decent. The idea though of having a KAOS villain built a bomb that when blowing up makes everyone naked is very silly, even by "Get Smart" standards but the overall humor, surprisingly good action sequences, superb performances by Don Adams' Agent 86 and (I can't call her new 99) Agent 22 and naturally tons of references makes this movie a worthy watch for the fans of the series and parody comedy in general.

An interesting trivia note: Joey Forman, who plays Agent 13, was a regular on the television show as the Hawaiian detective Harry Hu. Also, when promoting the film, Don Adams and Johnny Carson repeated dialogue from the film that took place when Smart and Larrabee were driving. Not as bad as some critics say.