BEHAVE? NEVER!
There’s no searching for coherence in the raucous and rowdy “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me,” no plot worth revealing, no attempt to make any sense. Laughs are all this film cares about, and it’s wickedly unconcerned about how it gets them.
More energetic and funnier than its predecessor, the considerable video hit “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery,” this edition of Austinania is an “Airplane!”-type cornucopia of spoof humor that takes gleeful potshots at a wide range of pop culture targets. It doesn’t connect every time--there’s no way it could--but its batting average is gratifyingly high.
Once again directed by Jay Roach and written by star Mike Myers (helped this time by co-writer Michael McCullers), “The Spy Who Shagged Me” relates the further adventures of the delusional secret agent and his equally incompetent nemesis, the shiny-suited, bald master of mayhem, Dr. Evil.
Both men were cryogenically frozen in the swinging 1960s only to be thawed out in the go-go ‘90s to face off in “International Man of Mystery.” In this latest chapter of what will no doubt be a continuing saga, the two men go back in time to duke it out once more in those wild and crazy ‘60s.
The thin reed of a plot on which considerable madness is balanced is that Dr. Evil has concocted a plan to steal Austin’s libido, known as his mojo. Waiting in the ‘60s to help the doctor is Young Number Two (Rob Lowe, doing a good imitation of Robert Wagner, the original Number Two) and waiting to bewitch Austin is agent Felicity Shagwell (don’t ask), played with the correct amount of bemusement and attractiveness by Heather Graham.
Also new to Austin’s world is the tiny, one-eighth-sized miniature clone of Dr. Evil (played by 2-foot, 8-inch Verne Troyer) that the great man dubs Mini-Me and immediately involves in all manner of surreal shenanigans.
“The Spy Who Shagged Me” throws so many kinds of things at you so fast, watching it can be pleasantly disorienting. If the film wants to have Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello appear out of nowhere to sing “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” on the streets of London, they’re there. For those who’ve never experienced an Austin movie, here are some other ideas of what to expect:
* Inane sexual humor. This includes a character named Ivana Humpalot (she’s Russian, if you must know), an elaborately edited sequence invoking nicknames for the male sexual organ that features both Willie Nelson and Woody Harrelson, and lines of dialogue like a woman asking Austin if he smoked after sex and the rascal responding, “I don’t know, baby, I’ve never looked.”
* Toilet humor. Literally and a lot of it. With key sequences involving bowel movements and an odoriferous stool sample, anyone old enough to get into an R-rated movie will be hard-pressed to find this amusing.
* Yiddish-tinged humor. As in the first film, there’s a country named Kreplachistan and a key character named Frau Farbissina (Yiddish for embittered), making clear that Myers’ heart is in the Catskills, not the Highlands.
* Movie references and spoofs. Given that Austin himself is a spoof of James Bond, it’s not surprising that numerous other films get parodied, including “Star Wars,” “The Exorcist,” “Jerry Maguire” and “The Island of Dr. Moreau.” The references are dead-on but so fleeting it’s possible to miss them if you’re not paying attention.
Hard to miss is “The Spy Who Shagged Me’s” infatuation with “The Jerry Springer Show.” In a mock episode titled “My Father Is Evil and Wants to Take Over the World,” Dr. Evil’s disaffected son Scott (Seth Green) confronts the old man and gets to hear himself dissed as “the mayonnaise, the Diet Coke of evil.”
With humor like this all over the place, “The Spy Who Shagged Me” couldn’t succeed without a unifying force, and that has to be the protean Myers, who in addition to playing both Austin and Dr. Evil spent nearly five hours per session climbing into a Stan Winston-designed latex suit to play a heavyweight villain with a 70-inch waistline subtly named Fat Bastard.
As these films and his earlier “Wayne’s World” demonstrate, Myers has a singular talent for skit humor. Seeing him play both the sniggering, snaggletoothed Austin, “the man who put the grr in swinger,” and the fussy, pinky-waving Dr. Evil is to see a gifted performer who knows his strengths and is not afraid of playing to them. You can get away with an awful lot of gross, juvenile humor if you’ve got that to fall back on.
* MPAA rating: PG-13 for sexual innuendo and crude humor. Times guidelines: considerable bathroom humor and much cruder overall than parents may be expecting.
‘Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me’
Mike Myers: Austin Powers, Dr. Evil, Fat Bastard
Heather Graham: Felicity Shagwell
Michael York: Basil Exposition
Robert Wagner: Number Two
Seth Green: Scott Evil
An Eric’s Boy, Moving Pictures and Team Todd production, released by New Line Cinema. Director Jay Roach. Producers Suzanne Todd, Jennifer Todd, Demi Moore, Eric McLeod. Executive producers Erwin Stoff, Michael DeLuca, Donna Langley. Screenplay by Mike Myers & Michael McCullers. Cinematographer Ueli Steiger. Editors John Poll, Debra Neil-Fisher. Costumes Deena Appel. Music George S. Clinton. Production design Rusty Smith. Art director Alexander Hammond. Set designers John Jeffries, Stephen Cooper, Andrew Reeder. Set decorator Sara Andrews-Ingrassia. Running time: 1 hour, 32 minutes.
In general release.
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