Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
There are times where I wonder what eyes other people use when looking at a film, and where I wonder how my own can see something so different.
I see people ranting and raving about GOLDMEMBER as if it is some abomination, some sub-CORKY ROMANO piece of shit that scathes their retinas through mere exposure. I see otherwise rational people embarrassing themselves in an effort to find the right adjectives to express their hatred for Mike Myers and this film.
And I’m stumped by it. Positively baffled.
One of the long-term projects we’re working on here at the Labs is an in-depth examination of the impact that SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE and its talent pool has had on motion pictures. The ‘90s Lists will look like a doodle on the back of a cocktail napkin by comparison, meaning you should get your first look at this hefty tome sometime around 2050.
I think some of the most heinous crimes against comedy have been committed by guys who graduated from the Lorne Michaels Meat Grinder, but there’s no denying the high-watermarks that other cast members have set. I think the original GHOSTBUSTERS is about as perfectly realized a mainstream franchise comedy as I’ve ever seen. Films like CADDYSHACK and ANIMAL HOUSE have a raucous energy and a sort of overwhelming desire to entertain that much of the pedestrian output in recent years just can’t muster. People may consider THE BLUES BROTHERS bloated or excessive, but you can’t argue this: it’s ambitious. And in my book, ambition definitely counts.
As far as Mike Myers goes, I think he’s a charming comedian. Yes, I hear that he emulates his idol Peter Sellers in more ways than just versatility, but I don’t care what he’s like off-screen. I think he’s got range and he’s consistently inventive, and even his worst films have had their moments.
He’s definitely a fan of the kitchen sink approach. It’s like every possible idea that he had has been thrown at the screen here. That means that, yes, there are a number of jokes that don’t work, that fall flat, or that feel like a stutter.
But, oh... the jokes that work...
I saw AUSTIN POWERS: INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY at a test screening way in advance of its release, way before I was writing for AICN at all. It’s one of the three most painful test screenings I’ve ever been to for comedies. I went with Harry Lime and our other friend, Yojimbo, and the three of us laughed incredibly hard. We were alone, though. The rest of the theater pretty much greeted the film with stony silence. I wasn’t surprised when the film failed to find an audience upon release, but I was surprised when it found one on video. Pleasantly surprised. It was a lovely little cult hit, a film appreciated largely by fans of the films that it roasted so successfully.
And then came the sequel, and the marketing build-up, and New Line’s greatest hour of salesmanship. Somehow, they took a failed franchise and resold it to America as a hit they just missed. THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME was bigger, more bizarre than the original, and abandoned the fish-out-of-water notion of the original in favor of something else, something more original, more uniquely Mike Myers. When I went to a test screeing of the sequel, it was a totally different mood than at the screening of the first one. There was an expectation, a familiarity. Myers and his collaborators Mike McCullers (co-screenplay) and Jay Roach (directing) were smart enough to expand the role of Dr. Evil, easily the best comic creation of Myers’s career so far. The addition of Mini-Me (played by Verne Troyer) was inspired, a totally deranged riff on the memorably horrible ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU. One of the things that was apparent, though, was that some of the repetition of jokes from the first film was wearing, with Mustafa’s return being a good example of the law of diminishing returns. I like Wil Farrell quite a bit, but the bit was funny the first time and monotonous the second time. The film also walked the fine line between funny and repulsive, and there were missteps in a few places, putting Mike on the wrong side of that line.
No matter. SPY WHO SHAGGED ME was a great example of someone learning from a prior mistake. When Myers made his sequel to WAYNE’S WORLD, he rushed and used a script he wasn’t happy with and tried to cover it up with comic digressions. It didn’t work. The film was a largely unfunny mess, and it killed that potential series dead in one fell swoop. This time around, when faced with the idea of a sequel, Myers stepped up and tried to do something that would outdo the original. The opening musical number/credit sequence in TSWSM is hilarious, beautifully staged and naughty in just the right way. Heather Graham may not have been particularly funny in the film, but she’s incredibly hot, and she seems to be game for whatever Myers suggests. Besides, she’s not the one who had to carry the burden of being funny. It’s Mike’s show, almost completely.
When I started seeing advertising for this film, I was unimpressed. That first trailer with the “little person” version of the opening of the first film was more than unfunny; it was ghastly. It said nothing about the film that it was supposedly selling, and if you didn’t know what AUSTIN POWERS was, this trailer certainly wouldn’t convince you to see it. Even once we started seeing footage, I didn’t see anything particularly appealing. It looked to me like more of the same, and there was no hint of anything genuinely funny. I’ve never seen a trailer for a comedy film where there were no real punch lines before, but the GOLDMEMBER trailers managed it.
Maybe that accumulated skepticism helped when I walked into the theater with Harry Lime last week. I had no real expectations for the film or for the franchise. I thought it had run its course.
And now? Well, now, I think I’d perfectly happy with an AUSTIN POWERS 4. Because now I have complete faith in the ability of Roach and Myers and McCullers to keep pushing these characters to new and different comic places. I am convinced that there is plenty of life to be wrung from what they’ve built for us.
I’m also convinced that there has been more genuine character growth over the course of these three films than there has been in the entire James Bond franchise so far, and that is just plain sad.
I know... some of you are rolling your eyes and saying, “But it’s only a comedy.” Because comedy is thought of as disposable in our film diet. There are very few enduring comedies, films that stand up to rewatching, films that somehow remain funny after the first exposure. So much of what people call comedy today is based on shock. One of the reasons I love the work that Myers does in the AUSTIN POWERS films is that his sense of humor is based almost entirely on performance and character.
Take, for example, the difference between Dr. Evil and Austin Powers. As characters, they couldn’t be more different. This is one of the few cases of an actor playing multiple roles where I find it possible to literally forget that they are the same person. I know that Dr. Evil’s voice started out as a riff on the way Lorne Michaels himself speaks, and that his appearance is a goof on Bond’s Blofeld, but Myers has filled him in with so many tics and quirks and details that Dr. Evil is now something wholly original. Austin was indeed played as a fish-out-of-water at first, but that’s impossible to sustain. The first film was about him adjusting to his new surroundings. The second film is about him learning that no one can take his mojo. And this new film is Austin’s own personal comic ROAD TO PERDITION, in which he has to come to terms with what exactly he has gotten from his father, and what he’s been denied. Austin has actually been consistent, growing in confidence and texture over the course of the three films. When the revelations hit in the final reel of GOLDMEMBER about Austin’s family, it’s funny because of the weight of everything that’s come before. There are jokes and payoffs in this film that have taken three movies to set up.
My favorite thing about this movie is the relationship between Dr. Evil, Scott Evil, and Mini-Me, and the way dynamics shift as things play out. Seth Green is given a lot of room to play here, and so is Verne Troyer. Both make the most of their opportunities. Scott Evil finally comes into his own as an Evil in this film, and Mini-Me is allowed to run even wilder than he did in the first film. When Mini-Me switches sides, it leads to several of the film’s funniest moments, including a deeply creepy moment involving Foxxy Cleopatra. It’s amazing how generous Myers is in terms of screen time for these supporting characters. He’s obviously as entertained by them as we are.
And how’s Beyonce Knowles? Well, I’m not convinced she’s an actress, but she’s adorable in the film. She has a great time in every scene, and she’s ridiculously plush, like a real life Jessica Rabbit, all curves and flirt. She looks like she’s delighted by everything she’s given to say and do, and there’s a real appeal to that. She’s also wrapped fabulously here. There’s a tradition in the AUSTIN POWERS movies to make the women look really special. I’d say that no directors have been as kind to Elizabeth Hurley or Heather Graham as Jay Roach has been, and that’s one of the things that makes the movies fun. The snickering, arrested adolescent sexuality of the Bond films grows tiring after a while, and AUSTIN POWERS roasts that by making Austin playful about sex. The Ian Fleming Bond and the original Connery version was practically a sociopath. He slapped women around, roughed them up, saw them as a way to work out a little energy. Austin treats them all like princesses. He adores women. Myers has a bag of tricks he falls back on during Austin’s “seductive” moments, and they’re both funny and charming at the same time. The one thing they’re not is condescending. Unlike Bond, I really don’t get the sense that any of these women are disposable to Austin. He enjoys them all far too much for that.
Michael Caine is used well here, even if it is an extended cameo more than a full supporting role. His entrance is great, and he appears to be enjoying himself immensely. I’m also very fond of the flashback to the days of prep school, when Austin Powers and Dr. Evil were roommates. They’re played in the flashback by Aaron Himelstein, who does a spooky Austin, and Josh Zuckerman, who nails all of the mannerisms that make Dr. Evil so deliciously strange. Evan Farmer, who plays a young Number Two, sounds so much like Robert Wagner that I had to check the press notes before I was sure it wasn’t dubbed by Wagner himself. There are a number of star cameos in the film, particularly in the opening sequence, and there’s a kick to seeing this with a crowd that doesn’t know what’s coming. New Line was determined to try and keep the scene at least partially secret, and I can understand why. A big part of the reaction comes from the shock of seeing these big stars, so obviously eager to be part of this strange thing that Myers and Roach and McCullers have built. For me, the best guest starring appearances are the ones later in the film, with Nathan Lane doing particularly funny work.
There are moments where the entire enterprise threatens to topple over under the weight of the inside jokes, but then some new and fresh gag appears that turns our expectations inside out, and I found that I was willing to forgive Myers almost any sin. There’s a great visual gag involving Mini-Me and Austin trying to sneak into a building together that left me laughing for the entire scene afterwards. The things that make me laugh when I recall them now are little touches, like the way Dr. Evil reacts when he’s caught in a spotlight during a prison escape or the joy on his face when he sees the sharks that Scott got for him, or the glee with which Fat Bastard delivers his final line of the film.
And that fine line between funny and repulsive? Myers seems to have found it again, and navigates it splendidly. In TSWSM, there’s the infamous moment where he drinks Fat Bastard’s stool sample, a misfired joke if I’ve ever seen one. Here, there’s a moment involving a urine sample that is far funnier because we, the audience, know that what we’re really looking at is apple juice. The joke is in someone’s reaction to what they believe in urine. The mistake allows us to laugh without gagging at the same time. Even Fat Bastard is used more as a surreal joke than a disgusting one this time out. Overall, it’s a testament to Myers and Roach listening to the reaction of their audience. They’ve taken their ideas and refined them instead of just repeating them.
My advice is to take a step back from all the hype (easily the least attractive thing about the franchise... the product placement in the film is offensively thick) and ask yourself if you think Mike Myers is funny. If you do, then he’s working near the top of his game for much of this film. If you haven’t enjoyed his previous work, though, then save yourself the heartache and skip the film. His personality is as strongly imprinted on this as possible, and I for one savored every belly laugh the film had to offer. I recommend it completely, and hope we haven’t seen the last of these characters.
"Moriarty" out.
