Weekly Cinemeh

Hello and welcome back to Weekly Cinemeh. This weeks theme has a bit of a backstory. For the past few weeks we have been watching a lot of James Bond films because Eshi and his SO haven't seen a lot of them, so we decided to watch a bunch because they are fun. This got us in the mood to watch some of the good spy comedy movies, Austin Powers. So this week we watched all three, so lets get to the list.

1: Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Austin Powers is a classic spoof of James Bond. There are some great references to the original movies and it has some fun poking at itself. The movie is about a villain freezing himself in the 60s to attack the world in the future when Austin Powers wouldn't be around. Austin decides to freeze himself to be revived when the world needs him again. In 1997 Dr. Evil returns to hold the world hostage and Austin gets revived to fight him. Its a fun movie with a great tongue in cheek way of pointing out how James Bond is a relic of a different time that needs to change to be relevant again. Mike Myers has a good sense of humor, and watching him run around as caricatures of Bond tropes is a good time. I also love the idea behind Seth Green's character. Myers has always been good at spoofing stuff and this movie might be the pinnacle of that. The problem with spoofs though, is that it is hard to tell when a problem with the movie is a commentary on the subject or just a shitty move by the director. The one that stands out the most to me from all three movies is how the Bond Girl analogs don't seem into the movie, they just seem to be there to be eye candy. I felt the same way about most of the actual Bond Girls as well so I don't know if it is intentional or not. Regardless it is a fun movie, and if you are a fan of James Bond you'll probably get a kick.

Eshi: Dr. Evil is unequivocally the best Bond villain, and there was a movie where 007 fights goddamn Christopher Walken. The slavish playing to tropes combined with the casual disregard for reality highlights the complete scope of personality required in a Bondian antagonist and I fucking love it. There are a good number of fun cameos in this one, including Will Farrell. Really all of the Austin Powers movies are pretty much what you'd expect; cheesy, fun romps about an anachronistic fuck machine who, on occasion, saves the world. Though I would recommend against a sober viewing

2: Austin Powers: The Spy Who shagged me
I think this movie is the best of the three. Dr Evil is back and goes back in time to steal Austin Power's "Mojo". Austin goes back in time to get his mojo back and stop Dr Evil's plan to blow up cities with his giant moon laser. As this movie deals with time travel, shit should get complicated, but the movie knows that this aspect shouldn't be taken seriously, and just tells you that straight to your face. This little joke is my favorite part of the series because it tells you what the series is all about: Just have a good time watching this fun film we have made. Myers is fun to watch again, just like in the first film. I prefer Heather Graham to Elizabeth Hurley, but only because she appears to have more fun with her role, and the introduction of Fat Bastard leads to some fun scenes. All in all I think it is a more competent movie because they don't have to spend so much time on fish out of water jokes like they did in the first movie. Mini Me is also a very funny addition, and makes the movie different enough from the first one to warrant a watch.

Eshi: I don't know if its intentional, but I really dislike all the female characters in these movies. Elizabeth Hurley was kinda wooden, but she seemed like she was supposed to be. Heather Graham
always looks kinda surprised to me, which is off-putting, and Beyonce frankly just seemed disappointed in herself. As usual Seth Green is fun as fuck and he has pretty solid chemistry with Myers. Really my only issue with this movie is Fat Bastard. He represents the cheapest, laziest fucking writing and his character is both fundamentally insulting and kinda superfluous to the plot, and keep in mind, this is the movie where he is the entire narrative drive. Other than that though, fuck yeah. Space lasers, spy fucking, and a dwarf, what's not to like?

3: Austin Powers in Goldmember
This is a strange movie. Once again I am unsure if the spoof is that this is supposed to be a Hollywood sellout movie, or if its just a Hollywood sellout movie. I have the feeling that is spoofing, but also taking advantage of being able to do it. This movie feels like it lost the heart of the original and its sequel. It seems like something that didn't want to be made. This time Dr. Evil goes back in time to get another evil villain to help him destroy the world, and its up to Austin Powers and Beyonce to stop him. The new character that Myers plays in this movie is the best part of it. Goldmember is a dutch version of Auric Goldfinger from the movie Goldfinger and is funny, but not enough to save the film. To be honest you could skip this movie and it wouldn't matter at all. There are a few very funny moments, but not enough to warrant watching it for them alone. I wouldn't suggest watching it unless you absolutely need to see more Austin Powers

Eshi: Ugh, to paraphrase the highly talented Soren Bowie, my arm is not long enough for the jerk off motion that this fucking thing inspires in my soul. It's trying to hard, which might be okay if it had any idea what it was doing. But fucking no. They half-assedly try to nest the story in a shitty blockbuster of itself strictly so they can pad their stupid cameo list. The world did not need Screwloose Von Middletooth to be Austin Powers for eight seconds. Fat Bastard is still repellent, Seth Green is still underutilized, and Mike Myers plays too many fucking characters. Don't bother, we only did because we're both compulsive completionists, and it still took us all week to gather the requisite fucks to rent the fucking thing.