Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
From the descriptions of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, we know that Austin has lost his "mojo," and has to get it back from his nemesis Dr. Evil. But what about the Austin Powers franchise -- does it still have its mojo? Judging from the reactions of those around me in the theater…
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Rob's Movie Vault
From the descriptions of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, we know that Austin has lost his “mojo,” and has to get it back from his nemesis Dr. Evil. But what about the Austin Powers franchise — does it still have its mojo? Judging from the reactions of those around me in the theater (not to mention my own response, a largely constant stream of laughter), the answer is a resounding “Yeah, baby, yeah.” The movie delivers on its promise.

Yet, sitting here away from the laughter, I feel a slight sense of loss. Austin Powers is no longer the quirky little comedy you recommended to friends, the cult item passed back and forth on videotape, watched and rewatched, memorized. It’s gone from being a hip little party to being a big bash where the stars turn out (there are a few celeb cameos in AP2). Also, the humor is much broader now, emphasizing gross-out jokes to the near-exclusion of some of the deadpan absurdity in AP1 — such as Dr. Evil’s baffling monologue in the support group (“In the spring we would make meat helmets”), or Dr. Evil leading his cohorts in diabolical laughter that eventually petered out until they all just kind of stood around looking at each other.

With that out of the way — along with my official disapproval of the way Elizabeth Hurley’s character Vanessa Kensington from AP1 is dealt with — let us praise AP2, not bury it. Like its predecessor, the sequel never wants to be anything more than silly and colorful, a clothesline for slapstick and sexual innuendo; the AP movies pick up where the Naked Gun series left off, reviving the old ZAZ what-the-hell, anything-for-a-laugh mojo that ZAZ themselves seem to have lost these days.

AP1 transplanted the late-’60s swinger Austin to 1997; the new movie sends him back to 1969, along with Dr. Evil and his derisive son Scott (Seth Green, having fun popping the old man’s balloon again), and I can’t help thinking the sequel missed a neat opportunity to have the very ’90s Scott adjust to life in 1969. As it is, Scott spends his time rolling his eyes at Dad and competing with a new “brother” — a diminutive Dr. Evil clone named Mini-Me (Verne Troyer) who gets so many laughs that he may swiftly replace Anakin Skywalker as the summer’s most popular character under four feet tall. Austin, too, gets a new partner in 1969: the alluringly named CIA agent Felicity Shagwell (Heather Graham).

As before, Mike Myers plays both Austin and Dr. Evil, and he adds a new character to his repertoire — Fat Bastard, who gives Myers the chance to work on his Scottish brogue through pounds of latex flab. Of the three, Dr. Evil easily wins the belt. Whether he’s favoring his minions with a little rap number (a parody of Will Smith’s “Just the Two of Us”) or dealing with the “weirdness” of interoffice sex, Dr. Evil is the real hero of the movie by right of sheer comic inventiveness; he has dimensions, whereas the amiable Austin just has mannerisms — often funny ones, but nothing too surprising, nothing you didn’t see in AP1.

I enjoyed AP2, enjoyed seeing these characters again and revisiting Myers’ loving, candy-colored homage to British ’60s culture. The only slight bummer in it, as I said, is that you can’t go home again — you can only see Austin Powers for the first time once, and a sequel, by definition, is just same-only-different. I had the same reaction to Scream 2, another sequel good enough to make me wish its talented creators would do something with the same impact as Scream, but not another Scream. Similarly, having seen that Mike Myers can create something as fresh as Austin Powers (and as naggingly funny as Dr. Evil), and then craft a worthy, often hilarious sequel, I look forward to his next creation.

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