Austin Powers in Goldmember: Movie & DVD Review (2002)

It has its moments--some of which are terrific, as inspired and as funny as audiences have come to expect--but they don’t come as often as you hope, certainly not as fast and as furious as they did in the series’ first two films, 1997’s "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" and 1999’s "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me."

Grrrr, baby. Very grrrr.

As directed by Jay Roach, who helmed the previous films, "Goldmember" is hardly dull, but it also never truly gets rolling; its rhythm is off, as if the inspiration that once fueled it so spectacularly has been sucked dry of its own mojo.

At my screening, you could sense the audience pulling for the film to come through in ways that it didn’t; people smiled at the screen even as the jokes sank and the laughter evaporated. That generosity of spirit stands as a testament to Mike Myers, who has created in "Austin Powers" a group of characters for whom people have genuine affection. And how rare is that?

The film, which Myers wrote with Michael McCullers, gathers together all of Myers’ characters--Austin Powers, Dr. Evil and Fat Bastard--and now a new character, Goldmember, a roller-skating, Disco-dancing, Dutch relic from 1975 who lost his genitalia in an smelting accident and who eats his own skin as a snack.

As interesting as Goldmember sounds, he is, at best, a blond oddity and a freckled distraction, a character so thinly realized by Myers, he only occasionally gets the laughs his gleaming phallus promises.

Still, he’s crucial to the unwieldy plot. After an all-star, A-list opening that borrows liberally from "Mission: Impossible" and the James Bond movies that continue to inspire the "Powers" series, the film focuses on saving the world from Dr. Evil and his mincing clone, Mini-Me (Vern Troyer), and on Goldmember’s kidnapping of Austin’s father, the randy Nigel Powers (Michael Caine), who’s stuck in 1975.

Zipping back to 1975 in his purple time-traveling pimpmobile, Austin reconnects with Nigel, who, we’re told, neglected him as a child, and also with an old flame, Foxxy Cleopatra, a Pam Grier knockoff played by Destiny Child’s Beyonce Knowles with a fierce blaxploitation sassiness that almost steals the show. Indeed, her first scene with Austin and a bewigged, lipsyncing Nathan Lane, is an instant classic.

Several scenes in "Goldmember" are standouts even if they’re only retreads of jokes we’ve seen before.

While in prison, Dr. Evil and Mini-Me launch into a hilarious rap video takeoff of Jay Z’s "It’s a Hard Knock Life," itself a bizarre rendition of the song from "Annie." Later in the film, Mini-Me and Austin plunge into the same sort of dirty silhouette silliness that Austin enjoyed with Heather Graham in "The Spy Who Shagged Me." And throughout, the verbal wordplay is in full effect, particularly when it comes to naming the bit characters, the most notable of which is Dixie Enormous.

Besides its ending, which is a feel-good disappointment, the main problem with "Goldmember" is that it moves away from what made the series so special in the first place—Austin Powers himself.

With Myers stretched so thin as Dr. Evil, Fat Bastard and Goldmember, all of whom give Austin a run for screen time, Austin is in precious short supply. He remains the best character of the bunch, the most lovable and likeable, the glue that holds the series together even as, in this film, it threatens to bust apart by branching away from him.

To bring the series back on track, Myers needs to reconnect with his alter ego and rediscover why audiences wanted to be shagged by Austin Powers in the first place.

Grade: B-

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