Never mind the world has changed tremendously since Don Adams, Barbara Feldon and Edward Platt, among others, spoofed the spy game with characters created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry: "Get Smart" is still silly more than four decades after its television debut.

The new movie inspired by the 1960s TV show goes the Spider-Man/Batman route by showing us how Maxwell Smart became Agent 86, how he teamed up with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) and how the American spy agency CONTROL tries to thwart KAOS and save the world.

Directed by Peter Segal, the "Get Smart" script by Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember, the pair behind the Matthew McConaughey romantic comedy "Failure to Launch," features a story about stolen nuclear materiel. But it's really just a frame for funny business.

It provides a reason for Max to move from obsessive analyst to agent, to partner with the more experienced Agent 99 and for him to encounter friend (Agent 13, hiding in a tree, in a nod to the agent who once slipped into mailboxes, airport lockers and trash bins) and foe alike.

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'Get Smart'

2 1/2 stars = Average
Ratings explained

• Starring: Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway.
• Rating: PG-13 for some rude humor, violence and language.
• Web site: getsmartmovie.warnerbros.com

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The other throwbacks to the past include the signature music, phone booth doubling as elevator leading to a series of doors that slam shut, and even the old shoe phone, which Max's fictional forefather considered the tops in technology.

Enjoyment of the TV show always depended on your tolerance of, or taste for, Adams, with his nasally voice and catch phrases such as, "Sorry about that, Chief" and "Missed it by that much." The same is true of Carell, who excels at playing a good-hearted bumbler, while Hathaway's agent gets a backbone and a back story accounting for the 20-year difference in their ages.

Alan Arkin, Carell's co-star from "Little Miss Sunshine," turns up as the Chief, and Dwayne Johnson, formerly The Rock, is perfectly cast as the suave super Agent 23. Terence Stamp turns villainous, Nate Torrence (fresh from filming "She's Out of My League") and Masi Oka represent the youth vote, and James Caan is the president of the United States with one of the worst Texas accents of all time.

Although the stunts, especially near the movie's end, are ambitious, some action aspects feel pre-owned, as they say in the used-car business. "Mission: Impossible" memorably had a similar room criss-crossed with lasers, while "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay" also milked an airplane mishap, and a Los Angeles landmark featured here turned up in another summer film.

In the end, "Get Smart" proves to be goofy, if largely forgettable, fun.