Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

1997 spoofy comedy

Rating: 9/20

Plot: Groovy secret agent Austin Powers has himself cryogenically frozen after his nemesis Dr. Evil has himself cyrogenically frozen some time in the psychedelic sixties. Some time in the future, Dr. Evil comes back with an evil plan to destroy the world. Powers is unfrozen to put a stop to it.

"The militant wing of the Salvation Army." And that's about it. The only thing in this movie that I thought was even marginally funny. I saw this when it came out but was surprised how I remembered every single detail as I watched it again. I did remember correctly that there's very little funny about this movie. Part of the problem is that there are quite a few of these spy spoof things, a lot even with a psychedelic hue. An over-saturation maybe. A lot of it is a dependence on potty humor. You get penis jokes, poop jokes, urine jokes, innuendo. Those are crutches for the non-creative, and if I want to enjoy that kind of humor, I'll just lock myself in the bathroom for a few hours with a couple puppets or, if I'm feeling really frisky, three puppets. I'll give credit to Myers for creating two unique characters. Personally, I think the Dr. Evil character is a lot more fun than the titular man of mystery, but even he gets a little old by the end of this. Elizabeth Hurley provides some eye candy and there's a lot of color to enjoy, but this movie doesn't have nearly enough material. Maybe they saved it for the sequels.

3 comments:

Barry said...

Eh, I liked this one a lot more than you. I found the sequels to be loud and mostly unfunny, but the original has some charm to it.


I give it a 15. I give part two an 11 and part three a 9.

cory said...

A 14 for this and no interest in the others. Charm and fun go a long way to make this silliness mildly enjoyable.

Shane said...

Fart jokes does not equal charm. I wish I knew how to make a = with a line through it. I'm sure technology has caught up with my desires to do things like that, but I'm not a computer virtuoso.

I saw the second Austin Powers movie and didn't care for it either. As I recall, a lot of the humor was recycled, and the addition of a little person didn't do much.