Austin Powers in Goldmember

(2002) dir. Jay Roach
viewed: 07/28/02 at Selma Theater, Selma, CA

Better than the original Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), but less so than the previous sequel Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999). The characters are getting a little tired, perhaps. Still, it’s probably one of the funnier mainstream comedies that will be released this year.

Mike Myers is assuredly a very funny and talented creative person, one of the better comedic writers and performers in Hollywood’s pool of talent. And this series of films have been a showcase of his best work so far, I would say. The character of Dr. Evil is the most hilarious creation, and the whole “Mini-Me” thing is hysterically absurd.

These films are very uneven, though. At times they can be extremely funny, but they tend to drag when they attempt to deliver any more sentiment to the narrative. Director Jay Roach has helmed all three of these films from the director’s chair, and Myers has written or co-written each film with Michael McCullers (whose only other writing credit seems to be on Undercover Brother (2002), the African-American Austin Powers character), so the creative team has been consistent,…in their successes and short-comings.

Goldmember seems like a rather underdeveloped villain character, more of a make-up opportunity to transform Myers into a fairly unrecognizable guise, in which he creates a character based on a strange accent. He is not very funny, though. I also don’t get all the anti-Dutch humor. I guess that Myers sees the Dutch as so benign that the characters’ seeming racism against them is meant to be played as humorous? I am not sure.

There are smatterings of racial stereotypes throughout the film. The comedy is so broad that it is maybe not meant to be seen through overly “politically correct” eyes, but the Japanese twins in the beginning of the film were nearly cringe-worthy. Seems truly like a throwback to the 1960′s…or earlier.

The Fat Bastard character annoys me. Nowadays, with costume design having advanced so much, an actor who is good at playing different extreme characters can be hidden beneath all types of latex and what-have-you, so much so that he or she becomes unrecognizable. Once a person “looks” so physically different, one would think it wouldn’t be too hard to create a character based on the make-up. In fact, a lot of the jokes about the character are physical references to the costume. Often, they are tasteless jabs at obesity, perhaps made worse in that the character is disgusting in many other ways as well.

The film’s humor that ranges into the tasteless frequently, at times with more success than others. The irony, for me, is that its strongest moments are not in its more exploitative humor, but in its more clever creations and in its coy and suggestive innuendos.