Review #908: 'Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me' (1999)

It's surprising to think that the first Austin Powers movie underwhelmed at the box office back in 1997, only picking up a cult following after its VHS release, and soon enough you couldn't escape the sound of someone yelling "yeah, baby!" every 5 minutes. By the time it's sequel hit the cinema screens, the character, along with the super-spy's arch-nemesis Dr. Evil, had garnered a huge mainstream following, and the movie was a big hit. Yet the film, subtitled The Spy Who Shagged Me, suffers from the same problems as most comedy sequels, which is basically to re-tread the same successful jokes from the first movie, and forgetting what made the original so fresh and charming.

Powers (Mike Myers) is a randy, free-love type-of-guy from the 60's. When he was re-awoken from his cryogenic state in the 90's, his out-of-date attitudes put him at odds with a society that had grown more stiff-upper-lipped. Crowds of screaming girls would no longer chase him down the street a la A Hard Day's Night (1964) and sexy girls wouldn't be willing to bed him at the drop of a hat. When Dr. Evil (also Myers) arrives back to Earth with a plan to steal Powers' mojo, the characters find themselves time-travelling again back to the 60's, where gorgeous super-agent Felicity Shagwell (Heather Graham) is ready and willing, but Powers lack the mojo to do anything about it. Most of what made the first movie so successful was that Powers was a man out of time, so by placing him back into his natural surroundings, the opportunity to create funny set-piece's are few and far between.

The dentally-challenged Brit is instead lumped with a dull romance with Shagwell, which is a carbon-copy of the relationship between Powers and Vanessa Kensington (Elizabeth Hurley), only with the roles reversed. In fact, Powers seems to play second-fiddle to Dr. Evil, whose ridiculously outlandish plots and newly-created sidekick Mini-Me (Verne Troyer) annoy his estranged son Scott Evil (Seth Green) and provide the majority of the film's laughs. An early scene where Evil appears on Jerry Springer with his son is hilarious, and the film is at its most inspired when the focus is on the bad guys. The Spy Who Shagged Me is also more gross-out than it's predecessor, continuing a trend set by There's Something About Mary (1998) and re-establishment of the teen sex comedy set by American Pie (1999), so Myers introduces a vile character called Fat Bastard who speaks with a Scottish accent and is permanently covered with chicken bits, whose scenes tend to induce more cringes than laughs. It's funny enough to justify its third instalment, but it lacks the satire, sweetness and freshness of the original.


Directed by: Jay Roach
Starring: Mike Myers, Heather Graham, Michael York, Robert Wagner, Rob Lowe, Seth Green
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie