"Get Smart" did, "The Love Guru" didn't - and in both cases, you can look to the leading man for the reasons.

"Get Smart," an updating of the '60s Mel Brooks/Buck Henry spy-spoof sitcom, stars Steve Carell as Maxwell Smart, the accident-prone secret agent originally played by Don Adams. When we meet Carell's Max, he's a lowly analyst for CONTROL, a super-secret American spy agency.

Max gets his chance to be an agent after CONTROL's headquarters, buried under the Smithsonian, are attacked - and all of the agency's current field operatives, such as super-suave Agent 23 (Dwayne Johnson, the artist formerly known as The Rock), have been compromised. The Chief (Alan Arkin) partners Max with the veteran Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway), who has been recently cosmetically reconstructed, and together they follow the clues to track CONTROL's arch-nemesis, KAOS, and their evil leader Siegfried (Terence Stamp).

Director Peter Segal ("Anger Management," "The Longest Yard") and writers Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember (who collaborated on "Failure to Launch") have a tough time re-creating the satirical wit of the original series. They rely too much on action-comedy staples - single-entendres and things blowing up - and give the characters, particularly the sexy-and-mysterious 99, too much backstory.

The movie would work better with another title. Comparisons to the original "Get Smart" - a time-capsule of Cold War parody that doesn't translate to post-Soviet fears - will have old-timers waiting for Adams' familiar catchphrases ("Sorry about that, Chief" or "missed it by that much"), while younger viewers will wonder what 's the big deal about a shoe phone.

Carell draws laughs because he stays true to the character. He is self-deprecating as he throws himself into every gag. He doesn't imitate Adams' nasal twang, but he gets the overconfident attitude down perfectly. In short, Carell plays Smart smart.

In "The Love Guru," star/co-writer/producer Mike Myers plays Guru Pitka, a Hindu-lite dispenser of well-marketed pop-psychology advice. Whether Myers is parodying self-help movement leaders, like his friend Deepak Chopra (name-dropped here as Pitka's rival), or embracing them is never clear.

Guru Pitka counsels Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco, from "Baby Mama"), star player for the Toronto Maple Leafs, who lost his hockey mojo when his wife, Prudence (Meagan Good), left him for Quebecois goalie Jacques Grande (Justin Timberlake) - just as the Leafs are about to face Grande's L.A. Kings in the Stanley Cup finals. (For non-NHL fans, the Leafs contending for the Cup is like the Chicago Cubs in the World Series. Funny, no? No.) Pitka also finds time to flirt with the Leafs' owner, played by Jessica Alba.

Myers mugs his way through the bathroom humor of this scattershot movie, directed by first-timer Marco Schnabel. Nobody, apparently, told Myers he was doing a one-note character with a funny voice that wouldn't make a good "Saturday Night Live" sketch, let alone an 88-minute movie. The only laughs come from reflecting on the irony of Pitka's spiritual journey for "self-love" - something Myers is not lacking.

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The Love Guru

Get Smart

* WHERE: Theaters everywhere.

* WHEN: Both open today.

* RATING: Both are PG-13, for rude humor (much more so in "The Love Guru"), action violence (more in "Get Smart"), language and (in "The Love Guru") drug references.

* RUNNING TIME: 112 minutes for "Get Smart," 88 minutes for "The Love Guru."

* BOTTOM LINE: Two big stars in two big comedies - but only one brings the funny.