THE AISLE SEAT - "AUSTIN POWERS: THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME"
by Mike McGranaghan
Every so often, someone will ask me if I've ever changed my mind about a movie. The answer is: very, very rarely. The good movies are always good, and the bad ones are always bad. But once in a great while, a movie comes along that just doesn't make the right impression on first viewing. For me, one of those movies was Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. I gave it mixed review, with a slight emphasis toward the negative. I thought the title character was annoying - a "Saturday Night Live" sketch stretched out too long. Something about the movie stayed with me, though, and I saw it a second time and laughed a lot more. I saw it a third time and really got the joke by this point. The character (and the style of humor) had grown on me.
So now we have the obligatory sequel, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. This time, I went in with an appreciation for the satiric premise creator Mike Myers had in mind. Unfortunately, the satire isn't as sharp this time, but since I know and love the characters, I still found plenty of laughs.
Myers returns as British superspy Powers. As the film begins, archnemesis Dr. Evil (who survived the original) announces a plan to go back in time and steal Austin's "mojo." Here's where it gets complicated. Dr. Evil travels back to the time when Austin Powers was frozen (i.e. the beginning of the first film). The mojo is stolen from the cryogenically frozen body. Austin - in the present day - gets wind of this plan and also travels back in time. Along the way, he meets up with a sexy American spy named Felicity Shagwell (Heather Graham); however, without his mojo, he is powerless to seduce her.
The original Austin Powers was a cleverly executed satire of the British spy movie genre. It also used humor to contrast the differences in society between the 1960's and the 1990's. The sequel more or less abandons the idea of satirizing something and just follows the blueprint of its predecessor. Powers tosses off his trademark catch phrases ("Yeah, Baby!" et al); all the major characters return and do more of their own particular riffs (Dr. Evil and son Scott have another "shushing" contest); a shaggadelic babe provides opportunities for Austin to flash his rotted teeth. Rather than picking a target for parody, the sequel gives us new variations on old jokes.
Even if most of the movie is familiar, it's still very funny, and there are some new twists that freshen things up. I really got a kick out of a tiny Dr. Evil clone named "Mini Me" as well as a Scottish bad guy known as Fat Bastard. There are several scenes that get really big laughs, including a bit involving shadows cast upon the side of a tent (they look suggestive to the people outside of the tent). The best joke in the film, however, is that Rob Lowe plays Robert Wagner (the villain known as No. 2) as a young man - and does so flawlessly.
It would probably be accurate to say that Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me takes the ideas and jokes from the original and builds upon them. At times, the process seems like overkill (how many times can we have gags in which Austin's privates are cleverly obscured by foreign objects?) but mostly the movie delivers just what fans expect. I laughed at the picture, sometimes very hard. If you get - and like - the joke, it's a comedy worth seeing.
(
out of four)
Return
to the Film Page
