Austin Powers in The Spy Who Shagged Me

Austin Powers is back!!! And it’s about time. I remember seeing the first one only on the strength of how much I loved So I Married An Axe Murderer. My friend and I ended up having more fun than we had had in a theatre in a long time. (Not that kind of fun…it was a guy.) About as much fun as I had seeing Army Of Darkness the first time. (Nice link, huh.) It was kind of weird, though. When the jokes went on for too long (as they often do, but it’s all part of the joke) the audience would stop laughing. Then, after they stopped the joke, we would laugh at the fact that we stopped laughing. Not many movies can make you laugh at the fact that you’re not laughing. It’s definitely one of my favorite movies of all time now.

And now there’s a sequel. This time around Austin (Mike Myers, of course) has to follow Dr. Evil (Myers again) back in time to rescue his Mojo. Along the way we find out that Number 2 (Robert Wagner) used to look like Rob Lowe and that Scott Evil (Seth Green) may not have been a test tube baby after all.

There’s also the little problem of Vanessa (Elizabeth Hurley), Austin’s new found love from the first movie. How do we get her out of the picture so that Austin can go after new 60s vixen Felicity Shagwell (Heather Graham–”Shagwell by name. Shag VERY well by reputation”). I don’t know that I totally agree with how they did it just because I liked the original character. It does fit, I guess. It doesn’t make any sense and makes Austin give us a look of utter confusion. That makes it work somehow.

The other problem is one of the new characters: Fat Bastard (Myers yet again). First off, there is a lot, and I mean A LOT, of gross humor in this one. This character goes a little too far with it. Especially when he’s naked. (Shudder.) He says things like “Where’s you’re crapper. I got a turtle head pokin’ out.” That has to be one of the dirtiest images in film history…and I’m glad I could share it with all of you. Basically this guy is a very fat, disgusting, sickening, gross, ill-tempered Scottish guy who starts working for Dr. Evil. He just gets grosser and grosser as the movie goes on. I don’t know if I liked him or not. I have a higher threshold for gross humor than a lot of people, but this guy wasn’t always funny with it. That’s where I have to draw the line. If it’s funny, go for it. If it’s not, stop.

Dr. Evil’s clone, Mini-Me (played by the under 3-ft. Verne J. Troyer), brings us some pretty good moments. He’s slowly taking the place of Scott, so they’re jealous of each other. And Dr. Evil doesn’t help things by doing new renditions of “Just The Two Of Us” with his new-found “son.” Then there’s all the Jerry Maguire bits. Pretty funny.

Felicity had a few problems, though. I love Heather Graham. She was great in Boogie Nights. She was cute in Swingers. She’s not very good in this one. But, you know what? She looks absolutely amazing and that makes up for her acting. Wow! If I were Mike Myers I would have chosen her to be with me, too. Especially with all those cool nearly see-thru clothes. Unfortunately we didn’t get a scene like we did at the end of the first one with her walking around naked. Instead we get Austin walking through a hotel naked through the opening credits after he finds out that he’s single again. Funny, but not what I really wanted.

There are a lot of cameos in it, too. Kristin Johnston from “3rd Rock” shows up early as Ivana Humpalot. This woman has no shame at all. She and Mike Myers together are almost too much shamelessness in one scene. Clint Howard shows up in the same role he had in the original, just the 60s version. Tim Robbins (yes, that Tim Robbins) shows his sense of humor again. For some reason I was really glad to see him in there. Jerry Springer gains a little bit of respect because of his role. (Ok, he plays himself, but Donahue probably never did anything like this.) Of course Mr. Burt Bacharach shows up. This time with special guest Elvis Costello! Cool! They do “Never Gonna Fall In Love.” Not bad. And watch for Fred Ward in a very tiny part.

Oh yeah, the gross humor. They almost go too far sometimes, but that’s the point of the series. There’s a scene with Austin and Felicity in shadowy silouhette that puts them in pretty compromising positions. Then there’s all those penis jokes. You thought that the warhead in the original was phallic. There are more phallic symbols in this one than Rocky Horror. They make reference to one of them in a string of scenes with people saying things like “That looks like a big…” cut to another scene “Johnson! Get over here.” This goes on for a while. One of the funniest ones involves Woody Harrelson and yet another cameo. Willie Nelson shows up in this part, too.

Then there’s those Star Wars references. The problem with those is that, in ten years, even in five years, we’ll forget why they were all there. We totally understand now, but do we all remember that Face/Off and Con Air were released in the same summer? Or that Godzilla and Armageddon were in the same summer? Well…ok…some of us remember. But some of us are geeks. They’ll still be funny, but why is a spy spoof spoofing Star Wars so much? Kinda weird.

They also seem to get confusing with the time thing. Whenever they want someone in a scene they pop up in the different time that they didn’t travel to. Scott shows up in the 60s even though he never needed to be there. Fat Bastard shows up in all time zones in all parts of the movie. When did he get to the present time? Dunno. Who cares, though. If we think about it too much our eyes will cross.

Of course there’s the prerequisite Bond spoofs: Dr. Evil wants his secret evil lair in an active volcano, there’s a fight in space, Austin and Felicity row up to the beach and are suddenly in bikinis (Oh, Heather!!)

It really is a good movie, it just gets confused occasinally (just like this review), and just too freakin’ gross with that bastard…who…happens to be…fat. (The last time he’s in the movie, though, there’s a very subtle joke. I thought it was funny even if it was pretty obvious. He’s disguised as a UPS delivery guy and, instead of UPS, his uniform says FBD. Pretty good, huh?) Not as good as the first one, but what did we expect? But, the more I think about it, the more I liked it. I laugh at things that hang with me. That’s the sign of a groovy movie, baby!