Ah, summer. A season of overblown budgets and extravagant productions. For movie goers everywhere, this three and a half month stretch is what they have waited for all year. So as always, the prediction for this summer is: Hollywood makes oodles of money. Over these next few months, this column will be examining the phenomena of counter programming and how well it stacks up to the popcorn flick of the week.

This Week: Get Smart Vs. The Love Guru

[SDYT]YJIAdF8SY2M[/SDYT]

[SDYT]WPz5e9TvYIs[/SDYT]

Warner Brothers already couldn’t get one 60s television show adaptation to perform at the box office this summer. And, well, you know what they say: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. OK, maybe “third times the charm” applies better here, since Get Smart is complete and total fodder.

Back in the 80s, Get Smart hit the screen for the first time with The Nude Bomb, which proved to be a bomb of a different kind. A box office one. With a plot revolving around an explosive that would make people’s clothes disappear… Would it really have killed them remake this movie, especially with Anne Hathaway starring? Would anyone have been upset by a nude Hathaway? Her scenes in Brokeback Mountain and Havoc became overnight sensations in my bedroom and countless others across America so I’d like to think not.

Carrell plays Maxwell Smart, an analyst for CONTROL, which was supposedly defunct after KAOS was defeated. However, KAOS is still alive and kicking, making bombs and plotting to take over the world. After a break-in at CONTROL headquarters, Maxwell is promoted to field agent and teamed up with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) to infiltrate KAOS and put a halt to their nefarious wrong-doings.

The original Get Smart was an interesting take on the Cold War and paved the way for an endless barrage of spy spoof and slapstick comedies, both of which have been done to death and not right in quite a while. The “re-imagined” Get Smart tries to take on terrorism and inspires silence from its audience. And an auditorium full of silent people watching a comedy is never a good thing.

The script is what really hurts here but its not surprising when you realize who the creative talent is behind the film. The director of The Longest Yard, 50 First Dates, Anger Management and The Nutty Professor II teams up with the writers responsible for Failure To Launch. Series creators Buck Henry and Mel Brooks were only brought on as creative consultants. This right here is reason enough for the film to fail.

Carell and Hathaway seem to make the most out of the material and they do both come off as tolerable, if not uninspired and looking for a que to exit stage right into a better movie. The characterization of Smart is very uneven, as each subsequent scene calls for him to switch from bumbling idiot to cunning agent. He tries breaking out of a plastic hand restraint with a mini-harpoon gun in one scene and somehow has the wits to escape from a maximum security prison in the next. Smart was endearing in the show because of his ability to be completely stupid and somehow win, as if by accident. By the third act of the film (which traverses into 24 territory), and over the course of a scant two or three days, he’s somehow transformed from agent savant to super spy, if without some minor graces.

I liken the new Get Smart to a bottle of soda that’s been left open on the counter all night: its not exactly awful but it’s flat and without the zing that once made you love it so much.

According to Mike Myers, Guru Pitka was performed for the first time during the same stand-up act as Austin Powers. We, of course, know what happened to Powers: he became the basis for the most successful comedy trilogy of all time (reportedly soon to become a quadrilogy). From what I’ve heard, Pitka was supposed to be used in a Powers movie but was cut out of the script somewhere down the line. And that’s exactly where he should have stayed.

Myers stars at Pitka, an American who was left in India as a child and raised by gurus. He leaves India for the states to enter into the “respected” world of self-help and spirituality. In order to get on Oprah and become the country’s most respected guru, he has to get Toronto Maple Leafs player Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) and his wife (Meagan Good) back together again, even though she’s currently getting it on with Jacques “Le Coq” grande (Justin timberlake). Yeah, that “Le Coq” nickname is exactly what you think it is. He’d probably have an easier time getting his job done, if he wasn’t preoccupied flirting with the Maple Leafs’ owner Jane (Jessica Alba) and trying to help the team win the Stanley Cup, finally lifting the Bullard curse.

The Love Guru gives you exactly what you’d expect from a Myers film: penis and poop jokes. And, I’ll be honest, there were some bits I chuckled at. But, what really kills this movie is the awkward stares. You see, I’ve noticed that every Myers movie features characters that give punch lines and then stand around for a few seconds, so you can laugh. But, what happens when a joke bombs? I’m left sitting there with nothing to do, same as the characters. That’s what.

Now, most of the jokes are very cheap. Sure, naming your mentor Guru Tugginmypudha has the potential to be funny. But only at 2am and after a few beers. So, maybe my problem was that I walked into this movie sober. Maybe then I would’ve laughed at two elephants having sex in the final act. It’s as insipid as the Thunderbeads gag in Made of Honor. The movie acts like a 13 year old, who swears like a sailor at school because he thinks it makes him look cool.

Myers almost talks down to his audience for some of the jokes, which common sense should tell you is completely ridiculous, knowing that this is, essentially, Austin Powers 4. What could have been one of the biggest laughs of the movie, featuring Myers playing himself and a cameo by Kanye West, is ruined by subtitles placed at the bottom of the screen, pointing out who these guys are. I’m pretty sure nobody has forgotten the now legendary Hurricane Katrina telethon.

Myers has been riding the Shrek train for far too long and hasn’t realized that his audience of teenagers that grew up liking Austin Powers has gone on to bigger and better things.

Verdict: This is actually a pretty tough one. On one hand, Carell is a force to be reckoned with, since The Office has taken him to new found stardom. This is also the man that got Evan Almighty over $100 million. If he can do that, he can probably do anything. On the other hand, Myers is a cash machine, creating Powers and Shrek all within the span of a decade, making him one of the wealthiest comedians of the past decade. People seem to really love him, mostly because of the fond memories of his days at SNL. They just can’t let go of the nostalgia. Ultimately though, I’m going to place Get Smart as the box office winner this weekend, with The Hulk following in second and The Love Guru trailing in third.