Austin Powers in Goldmember
Starring: Mike Myers, Beyonce Knowles, Michael York, Michael Caine, Verne Troyer, Seth
Green, Mindy Sterling
Studio: New Line Cinema
Austin Powers is back yet again! The third installment in the series, titled Austin Powers in Goldmember, is somewhat an attempt to capitalize on what was a cinematic gold mine twice before. Mike Myers is back, reviving his former roles as Austin Powers, Dr. Evil, Fat Bastard, and a new character (the title character) Goldmember. In this case, they didn’t try any fancy storyline to get rid of the old “Powers Girl” (Heather Graham). They simply didn’t include or mention her.
The movie starts as a parody of MI2, while showing off a long list of celebrity cameos. It seems Spielberg is making a movie of Austin’s life, so this sort of explains all the celebrities in the beginning. It seems to say “I’m Mike Myers. Look how many friends I have!” In any case, this third movie has even more of a thin plot than the previous one. It’s not that it’s a bad movie, rather the plot is just running thin.
One big surprise however, was the performance by Beyonce Knowles as Foxxy Cleopatra. She brought a lot to the picture, fully capturing the Pam Grier/70s type of bad mama. I originally thought she was a poor choice for the part, but other than one or two flubbed lines, most of her acting was really great.
The plot of Goldmember involves Austin’s father, Nigel Powers (Michael Caine). Nigel is kidnapped and taken to the 70s, where he is being held by Goldmember at his disco club. I’m not certain, but I think the Goldmember character was just an excuse to put a roller disco in the movie. J In any case, Austin must work out a deal with Dr. Evil (who is serving time in prison) to find the whereabouts of his father. Once he finds out, he tracks his dad and loses him again in the 90s. Confused yet? I’m not sure why all of this time traveling was involved, but as I said before, the roller disco scenes are pretty neat.
During the pursuit of his father, you learn that Austin isn’t really all that close to his father, and he is always seeking acceptance from him. It makes for a few awkward (serious) scenes in an otherwise funny movie. Throughout the later half of the movie, the plot takes several twists and turns leading to a surprising (and somewhat odd) ending, which I won’t spoil here.
Another side story in the movie deals with the continuing saga of Scott Evil (Seth Green) and Mini Me (Verne Troyer). These two are both trying to be Dr. Evil’s favorite, and it also takes a few interesting turns down the line. Scott tries to be more evil to gain daddy’s attention (See the father theme going?), and he does come up with some pretty crazy ideas.
All in all, it’s still a funny installment in the series, but some of the jokes are wearing a little thin. The ending was completely surprising, but I can’t say I was completely happy with it. In any case, it’s worth checking out if you’ve already seen the first two movies and would like to see it continue.
Overall: 7/10
Additional Information:
Rating: PG-13
Run time: 95 minutes.
DVD Special Features:
Infinifilm DVD pop-up notes
Deleted Scenes
Music Videos
Additional DVD-ROM features
Director's Commentary
Copyright (c) 2003-2004, ProjectFUN.net (includes all internal links)