In its original incarnation, "Get Smart" was a late 1960s television series that spoofed the spy craze that was popular at the time.

The brainchild of Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, the series lampooned the Cold War, covert operations and high-tech gadgets while making a comedic star out of Don Adams.

The recently released movie version of "Get Smart" doesn't try to redo the series as much as update its sensibilities from the 1960s to those of the 21st century. Silliness and satire remain as steadfast staples.

Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) is a paper-pushing policy analyst for the super-secret organization known only as CONTROL. With the fall of the Soviet Union, many within the government believed CONTROL had been retired as a viable defense organization, but in actuality, it simply had been moved to the basement of the Smithsonian.

Although Smart longs to be a field agent like his friend, Agent 23 (Dwayne Johnson), CONTROL's Chief (Alan Arkin) has no other analysts who possess Smart's thoroughness. Consequently, he denies Smart's request for promotion.

That is, until CONTROL is attacked and in the aftermath, learns that all field agent identities have been compromised. Promoting Smart to agent status would make him the only agent unknown to CONTROL's assailant.

Given the number "86," Smart is teamed with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) to ascertain who attacked the organization. They soon discover that not only was the attack instigated by the evil Siegfried (Terence Stamp), but it was done as a smokescreen so his terrorist organization, KAOS, could assemble the means by which to blackmail the world with a nuclear threat.

Director Peter Segal and writers Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember pay respectful, if not comic, nods to the TV show's creators and stars. Tributes are paid in the credits as well as by using lines ("Missed it by that much!") that defined Adams' Smart and the series.

Asides also are given to characters old (Terry Crews and David Koechner play two of Smart's office agitators, Agents 91 and Larabee, while Bill Murray makes an unbilled cameo as the chameleon-like Agent 13) and new (Masi Oka and Nate Torrence are two techno-geeks who arm Max with the latest in spy gadgetry). In addition, Bernie Kopell, the original Siegfried, drives by to say "Hello."

But Smart's character has been reconfigured, as is Carell's approach to him. To his credit, Carell brings his own comic persona to the character rather than trying to imitate Adams.

Carell's Smart isn't quite as clueless as Adams', nor is he as physically inept. Carell gives Max a nervous earnestness and insecurity that is always simmering beneath a surface of superficial confidence and steadfast adherence to procedure.

Hathaway compliments Carell by making Agent 99 a more action-oriented field agent than arm candy or a straight woman for comic lines. Writers Astle and Ember give 99 an interesting backstory that not only explains the perceived age difference between the actress and Carell, but also serves to give Hathaway a character of some depth -- at least as much depth as a comedy can allow.

If the film is uneven at times, it is because director Segal seems to get too caught up in the action and pyrotechnics required of the action-film genre.

But he more than makes up for it with some hilariously choreographed comic scenes, such as when Carell's Smart tries to make use of a CONTROL gadget to free himself from restraints while in the privacy of an airplane bathroom.

So while there will be those purists and devotees of the television program who may take umbrage with what Segal and company have done, for those who are not aware of the original series, "Get Smart" will be embraced as a fresh and entertaining summer comedy.