Director: Gil Junger
Starring: Masi Oka, Nate Torrence, Jayma Mays, Larry Miller
Tagline: "Loved Get Smart? Get more!"
Random Trivia: Masi Oka worked as a digital effects artist for ILM on Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones, and Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith
Lightly Baked here with a film so obscure many of you were probably unaware of its existence: Get Smart's Bruce and Lloyd: Out of Control.
If you're just tuning in, Bruce and Lloyd were the tech geeks playing Q to Steve Carrell's Maxwell Smart in the big screen revamp of Get Smart. Played by Heroes' Masi Oka and Studio 60 from the Sunset Strips's Nate Torrence, respectively, Bruce and Lloyd are essentially the asian geek and the fat nerd. Dweebish to the point of awkward humour, designed to be nearly interchangeable stereotypes (frequent mix-ups between the two names - "No, he's Bruce" - being a running gag throughout the film), the duo actually generate more laughs per minute than their big-screen source film. Of course, in comparison to that particular snorefest, that's no great feat.
I'm a few bong hits past baked for this one. We start out with a cheese B-movie intro of windy jungle dark at night and creepy music that looks more like an episode of Buffy than a straight-to-DVD spin-off of a major release. Think "It was a dark and stormy night" style cheese. As we peel past the jungle we find ourselves in a house as a group of soldiers looking like UN rejects bursts in. Their leader, whose name I neither pick up nor care about, takes the owner - we're told he's a scientist - hostage, forcing the poor doctor to work for him. Obviously, this scientist is the unwilling brains of some greater scheme. How do we know? Well, lead baddy tells his men "Not the brain" as they're about to beat him. How's that for dialogue?
Not a solid start, but there's a few options at this point: Complete cheese B-Movie, complete failure (I actually like cheese B-movies so this has its own option), or semi-decent spin-off.
Surprisingly, this goes the route of the latter. Again, this is not a glowing recommendation - Get Smart itself sucked. Still, there's a phone booth gag early on that sees Bruce and Lloyd stuck in the elevator from Control's underground lair that actually worked better than most of the gags in Get Smart, including the miniature crossbow in the airplane bathroom bit. It also makes one wonder why phone booth doors open inwards.
Oka is so geeky that he's actually hard to watch early on, but by the time he gets the girl - a forensics expert who constantly smells of rotting flesh - we've actually grown fond of him. Which is another sad little tidbit - Bruce and Lloyd are given more character growth in this flick that Maxwell Smart is in the main film.
Speaking of his forensics expert girlfriend, she has a few scene stealing moments - dropping her cell phone in a cadaver during an autopsy, and "I work with dead bodies - sometimes I need to unwind." Maybe these come off as slightly more humorous when you're high. They did for me.
The supporting cast in this spin-off, however, well... acting wise - ouch. Definitely lacking the budget of Get Smart (obviously), there's really no notable appearances other than a few moments with Patrick Warburton, and a quick scene with Anne Hathaway. Oh, and Larry Miller as both a Control Chief and CIA bigwig. Meh. Dual roles are overdone. Torrence and Oka fair pretty well however, and their likability as geeks actually carries the movie pretty far. As a bonus, their awkward social skills come off as relatively genuine (most likely because, well, they are).
Now, back to Bruce and Lloyd. One of the rather cool feats of this film is that it runs concurrent to the events of Get Smart - meaning that B and L, as I'm going to call them this one time, are having their own little adventure while 86 and 99 are fighting off the forces of Kaos and a homo-erotic Dwayne Johnson.
Story-wise, Out of Control centers around the theft of tech geek's Bruce and Lloyd's penultimate invention, an invisibility blanket. Think of the cool elvish cloak Frodo and Sam used in Lord of the Rings, with military applications. Control wants it. The CIA wants it. And apparently, rogue governments and the agents of Kaos want it as well.
Along the way, Lloyd is given a love interest who's a spy herself. And way, way out of his league (see how that's funny? Fat guy and hot chick? We call that Peter Griffin syndrome. Or Homer Simpson-itis. For reference, see Gleason, Jackie). A couple of CIA agents make humorous (not really) foils, and a few CIA loving torture jokes are thrown into the mix - "We're the CIA. When we do something, that makes it ethical."
Actually, I rather liked that last line.
So here's where we are at halftime: Bruce got his girl thanks to Lloyd inventing a spray that masks her eau du rotting flesh smell. Lloyd has a hard-on for a super hot foreign girl - who may be a spy herself, and might just be to blame for the missing invisibility blanket. Lloyd has to practice pick-up skills on the snooty Control secretary (I didn't look but I'm pretty sure she's the same actress from Get Smart). Actually, Lloyd is pretty creepy during these scenes. Like, here's some candy little girl creepy.
Maybe that's just because my eyes are glazing over.
There's exploding labs, the geeks on a mission, and a couple of subtle reminders that the events of Get Smart are still unfolding, the most obvious being the aforementioned appearance of Anne Hathaway, bitching out Lloyd whilst thinking he's Bruce for giving Maxwell better toys than her.
And, suddenly, there's bananas. I can't explain that. You'll just have to see for yourself.
The only thing that really prevents me from recommending this flick on a rainy day is that you need to be somewhat familiar with the events of Get Smart to really pick up on every nuance. Making this a half-decent companion film to a movie that was an utter bore.
And, to be honest, this flick isn't that good - it's just good in comparison to Get Smart.
Still, if it comes down to it, or if you're just a Masi Oka or Nate Torrence fan - and I know there's literally tens of you - pick this one. At the very least, cast and crew seem to be having fun with it.
One last thought: There were boobs that jiggled. In a top, unfortunately.
Overall rating: 1/4 Baked (2 out of 5)
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