Austin Powers: Goldmember

Well it's time to wrap up the Austin Powers trilogy with it's last installment: Goldmember. The last 2 movies were clever, witty, and above all, funny. So the 3rd movie followed in their footsteps right? Well, let's get the facts out of the way first.

Released in 2002, directed for the 3rd time by Jay Roach, and written once again by Myers and McCullers, with Myers reprising his 3 roles from the previous film, as well as adding another one. It also features Beyonce Knowles, Michael Caine, and a wealth of cameos. Rather than being a spy-movie spoof, it's more of a self-reverential family saga. Is it as bad as it sounds? Not quite, but it's by far the weakest of the 3, so let's see why.

The movie opens with Austin having a movie made about him, created by lowly director Steven Spielberg, and featuring equally lowly actors such as Tom Cruise, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Spacey and Danny DeVito. While that's going on, Dr. Evil is revealing his 3rd absurd world domination scheme  He plans to travel into the past and bring back another villain named Goldmember (Myers, of course), who developed a fusion unit for a tractor beam that Evil plans to use to pull a meteor into the Earths polar ice caps, flooding the world. But before you can say 'No Mr. Bond I expect you to die', Austin and the Secret Service break in and arrest the entire gang.

Remember how at the end of the first film the Queen announced that Austin would be knighted? Well she finally gets round to it in this one, but Austin is bummed to discover that his father Nigel (Caine) has not attended the ceremony. Basil Exposition shows up at his knighthood party to inform Austin that Nigel has been kidnapped, and after discovering his whereabouts from Dr Evil (!?!?), Austin travels back to the 60s to rescue him. While there, he comes across an undercover FBI agent named Foxxy Cleopatra (Knowles), and with help from her and his reluctant, uncaring father, they trying and put a stop to Dr. Evil's latest scheme.

As a conclusion to the trilogy, it ties up the lose ends (even ones we didn't even know existed), but as a comedy film, it falls pretty flat. The spy references are few and far between, the humour is weak and at times very forced, the dysfunctional family element detracts from what should be the real focus, the evil plan, and it really doesn't do anything new. Knowles doesn't do a terrible job, but much like Penelope Cruz in the 4th Pirates Of The Caribbean film, she's just there to look hot. Fat Bastard appears again, but he's given little to to do, and only a few poor jokes to deliver. Goldmember, the movies title character, has little screen time, and leaves virtually no impact or impression, he's more a plot device. He doesn't even appear on the poster for Heaven sake!

Overall, it's not a terrible movie, it's just not an especially impressive one. I did laugh pretty hard at some of the jokes, such as DeVito as Mini Me, but mostly it's just Knowles looking hot or Austin and Nigel going through their father-son melodrama. Apparently there's going to be a 4th film in the series, and all I can say is, if it's going to be as unnecessary as this one, let's just hope it's 100 times funnier.

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me

After such a funny and iconic first movie, it was always going to be hard to do a follow up. But with Mike Myers handling the screen play (alongside Michael McCullers of Saturday Night Live) once again, we get one of those rare a sequels that lives up to it's predecessor. I present to you, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.

Released in 1999, and once again starring Mike Myers (now in 3 roles rather than 2) alongside new entries Heather Graham and Verne Troyer. Much in the same vein of the first movie, it's about our charismatic hero and attractive heroine trying to to defeat the villain who has, naturally, a diabolical scheme. While having an almost identical story-line as the original, it also has it's charm and wit, and that makes for a great follow-up, so let's dive in.

Following their victory over Dr. Evil in the last film, Austin and Vanessa are happily married and enjoying their honeymoon. But things goes awry when Vanessa turns out to be a homicidal robot programmed to kill him. After she self-destructs, Austin laments upon her loss (a reference to On Her Majesty's Secret Service), but then realizes that he is once again bachelor, and free to indulge in his swinging lifestyle as before.

After return to the Earth from a second spate of cryogenesis, Dr. Evil and his organisation have now established their headquarters in Starbucks in Seattle. His cohorts inform him that they have created a clone of him, who is identical to him in every way, aside from being 1/8th his size, dubbed Mini-Me (Troyer). Following this, Dr. Evil is quick to unveil his newest scheme: To defeat Austin Powers with a Time Machine. Scott's sensible suggestion of using the Machine to travel back in time and kill Powers when he is vulnerable is, of course, dismissed for one infinitely more fatuous. Dr. Evil means to steal Austin Powers 'Mojo', the loss of which will render Powers ultimately powerless.

To steal Powers' Mojo, Evil uses a disgruntled, corpulent Scottish stereotype named 'Fat Bastard' (Myers), who, back in time when Powers was frozen, steals his Mojo, effectively putting Powers out of action. While this is going on, Dr. Evil travels back to the 60s to collect the Mojo, and to see his new base, a hollowed-out Volcano. Did I mention that he's evil?

To help Powers in his mission to stop Dr. Evil once again trying to extort $100,000,000,000 from the World Government, Austin works with another agent named Felicity Shagwell (Graham), who, unfortunately has the hots for our newly impotent hero.

Staying true to the Bond spoofing formula, we get much the same as the first movie. All the dumb plans, unnecessary speeches, provocatively named female characters, it's all here, but what makes this movie work is it's jokes. It's got a lot of great gags, a lot of which revolve round Fat Bastard, who just cracks me up. His constant anger, thick accent, and fervent believe that he is highly desirable all add up to a very memorable character. If I had to pick 1 thing that I really don't enjoy, it would be the character of Mini-Me. I think the movie could've worked just as well, if not better, without him. He's just annoying, especially the squeaky noise he always make.

But that aside, I always enjoy watching this film. You can put it on anytime and it'll put a big smile on your face. Will the next film make it 3 out of 3? Tune in next week to find out.

Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery

I love spoof movies. The Naked Gun series, Airplane, Hot Shots, all of which follow a simple formula: Using intelligence to create a stupid movie. You have to be clever to make a film that is so wonderfully dumb, a fact that many movie-makers neglect these days. So to celebrate the glorious world of facetious films, I'm going to look a Spoof Movie trilogy, The Austin Power series, beginning with the first film, International Man of Mystery.

Directed by Jay Roach (who also directed the Meet The Parents series), released in 1997, and starring Mike Myers (who also wrote the screenplay), Liz Hurley, Michael York, Robert Wagner and Seth Green. The film and it's sequels are a spoof of spy films, predominantly the early James Bond movies, which satirizes the silly elements that we came to love about them. One of the funniest movies of the 90's, it deserves all the credit it has garnered over the years, so let's see why.

The movie opens in London, where the Swinging 60s are in full, eh, swing. Here we come across British spy Austin Powers (Myers), and his arch-nemesis Dr. Evil (also Myers). With help from British Intelligence Agent Basil Exposition (York), he tracks Dr. Evil to a nightclub, where Evil escapes inside a Rocket disguised as a 'Big Boy' statue, cryogenically freezing himself in the process. In the event that he should return, Austin volunteers to have himself frozen as well.

We then cut to 1997, where Dr. Evil has come back to Earth, and has been concocting, of course, a dastardly scheme. With the help of his number 2 man, Number 2 (Wagner) and several unscrupulous henchmen, they plan to threaten the world with a Nuclear Warhead, and ransom the World's Governments for $100,000,000,000. But he also has the issue of bonding with his rebellious teenage son Scott (Green), who was created from his frozen semen while he was in cryogenesis.

With Austin out of frozen stasis and ready to pursue Dr. Evil once again, he is assigned a partner to help him in his quest, and to help him acclimatize to the 90s, Vanessa Kensington (Hurley), the daughter of Austin's partner in the 60s. Together, Austin and Vanessa attempt to foil Evil's plans, but our villain is not prepared to go down so easily.

Yep, it's a comical look at classic Bond movies from the 60s and 70s. A super-evil villain wants to achieve supreme power, and it's up to our suave, sweet-talking hero to stop him, all the while trying to charm his astoundingly beautiful partner, although in this movie she has a normal name.

The majority of the humour that comes from the film is based around the cliches and laughable aspects that we all remember from those movies, usually revolving around the villains. Ridiculous schemes, dumb henchmen, silly names, maniacal laughter, long speeches, and best of all, the methods by which they try to kill the heroes. Sharks, laser traps, burning alive, drowning, the list goes on. This film, of course, takes full advantage of all of these. As a satire, it's pretty close to perfect. The jokes, the deadpan performances, the progression of Dr. Evils plan, and do I even have to mention the catchphrases: 'Yeah baby', 'Oh behave', 'One million dollars', you all know them and you all love them.

Nothing much else to say really. One of the best spoofs, one of the best comedies, and one of the most endearing films ever made. I would say check it out, but I know you already have.