Alright... so ya don't trust my judgement on a film like AUSTIN POWERS (or any other for that matter) and ya want to hear from someone in the High School generation that loved the first film, someone who can quote all the dialogue to the first one. One, who only a few short months ago was panting and drooling a mere 2 feet from Elizabeth Hurley's neck whilst a movie... that he can't remember (on account of the beautiful neck... ahhh the way the light cascaded from the screen in a soft glow from her skin... SOrry... I got into Quint's character toooo deeply methinks...) Anyways... here's Quint... And he's too young to be political. He's angry about damn dirty adults that think he doesn't know anything. So... without further adieu... here's the dude...
Ahoy there constant readers. AICN's resident crusty seaman back again, this time with a review of the summer's 2nd biggest movie, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.
I'd like to start off by being the first to say that Mini-Me is a stroke of pure genius. Alright, I'm probably not the first person to say that, but goddamnit it's the truth. Pure and utter brilliance from the concept of the character to the portrayal of the character to his little manurisms (and fingure gestures I might add) to the terrific chemestry between himself and Dr. Evil. Without Mini-Me, The Spy Who Shagged Me wouldn't have been able to stand up equally with the original. Yes, folks, we finally have a sequel that's as good as the original. Possibly better than the original. I think Austin Powers and The Spy Who Shagged Me fit very well together and will make a terrific double feature.
I'm just going to take a quick sidenote here. What's with the freaky, dead on impersonations of older actors by younger actors these days? First Ewan nailed Alec Guiness' voice to a tee in Star Wars and now Rob Lowe has a dead on Robert Wagner (aka Number 2) accent in The Spy Who Shagged Me. Just thought I'd point that out.
The faults of the movie... well, I'm sure you're going to read in other reviews about the overusage of some of the gags from the original. A lot of them don't work. Some of them didn't even work that well in the original. For Example: The Spy Who Shagged Me has it's own version of the "That's not the way to get ahead in life." Those who say The Spy Who Shagged Me has too many recycled jokes are right. But so many of the jokes, recycled or not, work beautifully. Moreso than in Austin Powers. I'd say if you compared the jokes that worked in Austin Powers to the jokes that worked in The Spy Who Shagged Me, you'd see that The Spy Who Shagged Me succeeds in so many more areas than its predicesor.
The Spy Who Shagged Me has soooo much going for it. The genius of Mini-Me, the absolute beauty of Felicity Shagwell (of course played by the incredibly, almost inhumanly hot Ms. Rollergirl herself, Heather Graham), the loveable ineptitude of Austin, the hilarious ineptitude of Dr. Evil and, of course, the overall shagadelic tone of the movie, baby. Yeah!
You know what? My view of the film has altered slightly since the beginning of this review. I would have to rank it above Austin Powers. I'd say it not only lives up to the original, but surpasses it. Unlike Harry, I love the first film... so take from that what you will. Just sitting here, typing away, thinking about the movie and just laughing out loud while remembering scenes with Fat Bastard, Dr. Evil vs. Jerry Springer, the tent scene (you'll know it when you see it), the rocket gag (see tent scene), the surprise cameos.The original didn't have anything that even remotely compares to Mini-Me. Good God, Mini-Me is destined to be a classic character. Holy shit is he cool! It also focuses more on Dr. Evil who, in my humbled opinion, is the best character from the original. The comparison of Austin Powers and TSWSM to Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back made by Harry is very apt. The dark side is so much cooler!
The fact that this is really Dr. Evil's movie is probably the biggest element in the overall formula that makes this movie better than the original. If this film had focused on Austin as much as the original did, I don't think it would have been nearly as good. As a result of focusing more on Dr. Evil, the movie isn't just a rehash of the original. Thank whatever Cinematic God there may be for letting Mike Myers make a terrific sequel! He and the other screenwriters (I believe he wasn't the only one) took the best elements from the original and changed them around, then added in a whole slew of terrific new elements. The mixture made for a better movie.
