It was a great idea:  why not release a direct-to-home video movie that ties in with a theatrical release?  There would be lots of synergy, with fans of the movie picking up the DVD or Blu-ray disc and vice-versa and there could be lots of cross promotion.  That's exactly what Warner did with Bruce and Lloyd:  Out of Control, a spin off from the Get Smart film that was in theaters this summer.  I enjoyed the remake of Get Smart, and this film stars two likable supporting characters from that movie, the tech-geeks Bruce and Lloyd, and has a lot of comic potential.  Like I said it was a great idea, there is only one problem:  the movie itself is pretty bad.

Taking place at the same time as Get Smart, this film focuses on Bruce and Lloyd and what they are doing while Max and Agent 99 are out in the field.  They've invented an invisibility cloak, much like the one in Harry Potter, and it's been stolen by a foreign agent.  When Control is attacked and nearly all of the agents killed, it's up to the two nerdy scientist guys to go out in the field and retrieve the lost technology before it can be sold to CHAOS.

Fortunately the cloak was stolen by the most stupid spies in the world, and when one of them puts it on while standing outside an embassy, the pair know where it's located.  Now all they have to do is seduce the hot Latin babe who stole it in the first place, and have her lead them to its hiding place.

There's a lot wrong with this movie, and most of it goes back to the writing.  First off, if you haven't seen the Get Smart movie, this will seem a little confusing.  Some of the same events happen, but while they are in context with the theatrical film, here they are never explained.  When Control is attacked for instance.  The explosion is shown, but they simply use it for a quick gag or two then move on.  What was actually going on is never explained fully.

Even while running at a scant 71 minutes, this movie feels padded.  It's more of a collection of skits than a well thought out film.  There are many scenes that don't fit into the main plot, like when they activate the robot Himie.  What was the point of that aside from killing five minutes?  They introduce a lot of gadgets in the first section of the film, but they are neither funny nor useful.  There's the tickle Taser, a device that causes anyone you shoot it at to laugh, and Chameleon shoes that allow the wearer to walk up walls.  It would have been okay if these were later used to solve some problem, but they weren't.  As it is including these segments is just wasted time.

A lot of the jokes that are included are old and lame.  Lloyd, the fat one, is always eating.  When they are running for their lives near the end of the film, he stops to eat a banana he finds in a fruit bowl.  That's the level of humor you can expect in this film.

I have to admit, I was expecting more from the image on this disc.  While it certainly isn't bad, this direct-to-video feature fails to impress.  The 1.85:1 video is a bit on the soft side, though there is are a few nice eye-pop scenes such as when the pair are outside by the lake early in the movie.  The darker interior scenes are very noisy however, much more so than one would expect.  The section near the end when the main characters are all in the lobby of the foreign embassy is a good example.  The characters in the foreground look fine, but the background is buzzing with digital noise.  There are a couple of dark scenes were this is quite apparent.  Aside from that, the show looks fine.  Those few scenes with excessive noise don't ruin the whole movie, and aside from that things look about average for a Blu-ray disc.

Audio:

This Warner release only comes with a DD 5.1 audio track.  I was hoping for HD audio, but I'm not too surprised that they skimped on that.  This is a low-budget flick intended to make a quick buck after all.  Like the video, this track was uninspiring.  The film is mainly dialog based, but even so the rears were hardly used.  There wasn't much in the way of background music or audio effects and the sound was pretty much centered on the screen.  While it wasn't bad per se, there wasn't anything exceptional about it.

Extras:

There were a couple of bonus items, but nothing really worth writing home about.  Bruce and Lloyd's Confessionals consists of Real World-like testimonials that take place during the party that is featured in the movie.  The characters sit in front of a camera and try to improv something funny, but more times than not it falls flat, much like the film itself.  Cue the Anti-Follicular Device is a 15-minute look at how they did the make-up for the gun that causes someone to loose their hair, and Bruce and Lloyd Tech talks with two scientists about the possibilities of the gadgets that were in the movie ever becoming a reality.  Nothing very exciting.

Final Thoughts:

After enjoying Get Smart and particularly Bruce and Lloyd's appearance in that film, I was looking forward to this spin-off.  Unfortunately they took a pair of good characters and a potentially humorous situation and filled it with lame jokes and gags that fall flat.  In a lot of ways this film feels like it was cobbled together from the discarded ideas from the feature film.  There were a couple of amusing moments, but not more than that.  Fans who are really curious should rent it, but only if you've got some time to kill.