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.
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