The title is sort of odd, being as that's the name of the villain, and he's hardly in the movie.  Well he's in it, but doesn't really do anything that funny or interesting, and has far less screen time than Austin, Foxy Cleopatra, Dr. Evil, or Mini-Me.

I'm assuming in writing this that you've seen the first two, or at least one of them, and are conversant with the characters and conventions.  I'm not going to spoil the surprises, but there will be some spoilers, since otherwise there's really not much to talk about.  I will talk about what was in the movie, and what I thought could have been done better, so this is more of an analysis than a real review.

Goldmember
Script/Story: 5
Acting/Casting: 7
Action: 3
Comedy: 4
Eye Candy: 6
Fun Factor: 3
Replayability: 3
Overall: 3

First off, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to see Goldmember if you didn't see both of the other two Austin Powers movies, and really enjoy them.  This one is inarguably the weakest of the three, and you won't get a lot of it if you don't know the characters and conventions of the series in advance.  On the other hand you might find some things very funny just since you haven't seen them in two movies already.  It's not like the complicated plot will leave you lost in confusion if you haven't seen the other two films.

If you have not seen the other two, go rent/buy them, and watch them instead.  Either is much funnier than the new one.  If you love them, then maybe go see Goldmember, but it will be a let down.

The opening action sequence up to the credits has gotten some mention for being brilliant and hysterical.  I'll agree that it's very clever, but it wasn't actually funny, other than in concept.  It shows a movie based on Austin Powers with other actors playing the parts, and the biggest surprise is who they are, so I won't say here, but they are very big stars.  Oscar winners, name above the title on the poster types.  Which makes it pretty damn funny, but again only in concept.  You laugh when you see who is in the make up as Austin or Dr. Evil or Mini-Me, but other than that it's a throwaway gag.  Unfortunately it's not totally thrown away, since they go back to it at the end, seemingly out of desperation for a way to conclude the film, since the actual plot has ground to an utter standstill of phony emotion.  The opening is also notable for showing conclusively why Spielberg is a director, not an actor, and we should all be quite grateful that he's aware of his limitations, since if he cast himself, ALA Tarentino, he would kill any scene he walked into.

There are constant things in the movie that should be really funny, but don't quite work out that way.  The stuff I thought worked best was the physical action.  Dr. Evil gets nailed in the head or balls, Mini-Me fights or falls or gets knocked around, etc.  Yes, I have a 5 y/o sense of humor.  I at least didn't think the numerous fart jokes were all that funny, I'll point out to the jury.  Austin fighting Mini-Me by mistake is probably the funniest sustained scene, just for the very outrageousness of the images.

The mole guy is pretty funny also, for the right reason; Austin's reaction.  That's what really makes the comedy work in the first two films; how Austin Powers reacts and behaves.  He's such a kook, and has that weird sex symbol/stud aura, despite being hideously-ugly.  He seems to score constantly, but he's always sort of overwhelmed when any woman shows interest in him. There's an amusing bit early on with Japanese twins that does that well, but it's never really returned to.

The hot female agent in this one, played by Beyoncé Knowles, a singer in some pop band,  is much less interesting than Eliz Hurley or Heather Graham were in the other two.  She's not as hot, usually buried in tons of Tammy Faye style eye make up, and the screenplay shies away from any sex or real emotion between her and Austin, I assume since she's black and interracial anything is still pretty taboo.  They talk initially as if they were an item in the past, but they don't shag or even hint at it, and never give any indications of real attraction towards each other.  On the whole there is very little Austin the leech action, and that was always a funny aspect of the other movies, him obsessed with sex but all nervous and hung up about it.

The main replacement for sex is love, sort of.  Austin's dad appears, played by Michael Caine, and other than one funny part when he James Bonds the lesser evil henchmen, he doesn't do a goddamn thing.  He has no real personality, just sort of an older, suaver Austin. Sort of like a cross between Bond and Powers. Or a drunk Bond, hamming it up.  He needed some quirks.  They show him right at the start with a bunch of girls all over him, but that's pretty much it for his horn dog behavior.

The vast majority of the movie is boys with boys.  Virtually every scene is all male, and this movie has the most discussion and observation of penises that I've ever seen on film, short of an actual porno.  The penises being discussed or seen or joked about are all off screen, of course, (unless you count Goldmember's various cod piece outfits) other than some shadow play, but the discussion of penises is just constant.  Including a site gag of Austin pissing into an unconscious guard's mouth.  Sort of.  There's projectile apple juice urination, penis statues, gold-painted penises, Caine's lingering and loving description of Mini-Me's endowment "Like a baby's fist holding an apple." he says, and then later in the shadow play section, we actually see that.  Austin gets jock straps thrown on his face, Dr. Evil gets hit in the balls a couple of times, everyone in several prison scenes walks around with a handful, etc.  I'm just listing stuff that I'm thinking of now, there are far more in the actual movie. I'm not saying it's homoerotic, but the script was clearly out of quality material, and had to go for fart and willy jokes to fill the time.

Another thing they did that I didn't like at all was constantly breaking the 4th wall.  It wasn't a Wayne's World thing where the characters talk to the camera, but the "movie in a movie" thing was a distraction every time, Fat Bastard does a stunt with wires that's sort of cute in concept but drags on and on and is ruined by excessive explanation in the set up, and there are numerous other things that remind you it's just a dopey movie.  The characters hardly ever seem to be actually acting their parts; they are more like people on a bad sitcom, always aware of the studio audience.  Sure it's all satire and such, but the characters in it should take things seriously; and be funny by their oddness.  Instead they were always seeming to play to the watchers, and that tone was distracting to me.

They had a number of cuts away from the action to show celebrities (the Osbournes, most memorably) talking about the movie as it was going on, and I thought those were universally jarring.  Even worse were two or three times where a character remembered something from the first two films, and they then actually showed the clip from the other movie.  Yes, the flashbacks episode, the last resort of every dying sit com.

Every inside joke was explained away, which ruined them.  The whole point of inside jokes is that they are funny for people who get them.  Explaining them invariably kills their humor.  I expected the flashback thing to be tweaked with, where the character remembering it would rewrite history and that would show up in the "you remember when" scene.  That would have been unnoticed by some, but people who remembered the first two films would have died laughing. Which is the point in an inside joke.

South Park did an early flashbacks episode that was just brilliant in that way, where they all had the, "you remember when..." thoughts, and the character remembering it always had it totally different than how it was in the actual episode in the past.  All of Cartman's ended with him happy and getting ice cream, rather than finding out his mom was his dad since she was a hermaphrodite, for example.  Goldmember could have done something along those lines and it would have been great for people who saw the other movies and remembered the changes.  Instead they played it totally straight forward, burying any humor beneath heavy exposition.

Another example; they had a very funny idea with subtitles, where the letters were white and parts of the background were white, so you could only see part of the words.  This could have been very funny, but they beat it to death by having Austin reading the words and being confused and upset, and Foxy explaining.  If they'd just had the subtitles and hidden parts of them with white backgrounds subtly, people would have been rolling in the aisles as they noticed them.  Instead it was all telegraphed and diagramed and sucked dry of any potential humor.

The excessive 4th wall breaking goes along with the dialogue lacking humor and snappiness.  It was always a sort of, "look at how clever we are", rather than just being characters doing stuff that is funny/clever.  Foxy is really the only one I thought was acting; perhaps since it's the woman's movie debut.  Not that she was any good, but she seemed sincere at times and sweet in her emotions.  She just wasn't funny, ever.  Not really her fault, she didn't write the lines.

There are several musical numbers that work pretty well. The rap Evil and Mini do while in prison is damn near brilliant.  It's set to a very wimpy song from the Little Orphan Annie musical, and you'd think that impossible to work with a rap, but they pull it off pretty smoothly.  Bonus points for that; I'd like to see it again just to watch that part once more.  Mini-Me in gangster prison clothing is very amusing.  He's really the best character in the film, when you get down to it, despite having zero dialogue.  Very expressive little guy, and yes midgets in funny costumes are still amusing.

The tertiary evil characters do nothing.  Number Two is hardly in the movie, and I can't remember one thing he does that's interesting or funny or important.  His dignified nature was played well for laughs, in comparison to the unintentionally screwball Dr. Evil, in the other two movies, but there's none of that this time.  Frau does next to nothing also, other than providing a pointlessly blatant product plug for Taco Bell early on. Scott Evil is in a lot of the movie, but they've ruined him.

He was funny in the first two for being a real person, a sort of angry, disaffected teen whose dad happens to be this evil genius mad man.  Scott was funny for his reality checks, "Cause you never kill him when you have the chance and you're a big dope!" and sulking about daddy and rivalry with Mini-Me.  In this movie he appears to have aged about 15 years, and is no longer funny as a bitter teenager.  He's like 28 now, and balding, looking disturbingly like Ron Howard at times.  They try for some of their old gay banter early on, but it's less funny than it was in AP 1 or 2, and after that Scott loses his wounded persona, and becomes a sort of Number 3.

Fat Bastard is in it and has some semi-funny scenes, but also some deadly ones.  His ending appearance and joke falls flatter than a throw rug, though his costume as a sumo wrestler is damn well done, and his ass/shit-obsession is occasionally amusing.  Not a word about "I ate a baby." though, and I kept waiting for him to pounce at Mini-Me with his "the other other white meat" hunger manifesting, but he never did anything of the kind.

And no, Basil Exposition didn't do anything of interest in this one.  He was hardly in it either.

If you do see it, be sure you stay for the start of the credits; they show some outtakes, mostly Ozzy muttering incoherently as he tries to do a very short and simple line.  He is so baked.

Another outtake with Britney Spears is sort of funny, just in that she's eager to date a character who is known for having an enormous cock.  No jokes about that 'Nsync guy she was dating not being enough to fulfill her, but it was sort of amusingly naughty, with her whole virgin/whore persona on display.  It was actually the most I've ever seen of her in a moving image; rather than just still shots you can't help but see (since she's everywhere).  She's quite attractive, at least with the perfect movie make up and lighting, etc.  But keep in mind her Dean's Planet appearance; it will dump ice in your shorts.

On the whole, Goldmember wasn't horrible, and I'd have been less disappointed if the first two AP movies weren't so funny.  I really enjoy both of them, and have seen them several times each on tape.  The first one I didn't think very good or funny the first viewing, but it's grown on me a lot, and the second one I thought was hysterical the first viewing.  I was crying and choking in several parts at the sustained humor in both the first two.  Never in this one.  Perhaps Goldmember will grow on me, when/if I see it again, but I'm not exactly dying to find out.

Originally posted in the update July 27, 2002.

July 16, 2004

One quick review for today is about Austin Powers 3, AKA Goldmember. We picked it up at the library on Wednesday, since Malaya had never seen it before, and she'd enjoyed the first 2 Austin Powers movies. I had also, which is why I went to see Goldmember 2 years ago, a midnight showing on opening night. I blogged about it and the review has been online for almost 2 years now, but I just reread it now, wondering what I'd thought of the movie way back then.

My review is here, and while I'm pretty hard on the movie in it, I'm almost tempted to revise it now, after watching it six hours ago. Well, "watching it" is a bit of a stretch, since we didn't really watch it. We sat through about 1/3 of it, and only lasted that long thanks to judicious use of the DVD scene skip button. Malaya, who had never seen it, got up and walked away after less than 10 minutes, and spent some time surfing while I skimmed through the first hour, pausing periodically for something I remembered. It is truly a wretched movie.

That's not to say there's nothing at all funny in it, since I laughed a few times, but only because something was so gross, or obscene, or wrong that it felt almost forced out of me. A laugh-jerker?  Malaya, who had hoped to laugh and enjoy it, sat stony-faced, and constantly brought up Battlefield Earth, the film that sits high, high atop the mountain of her list of worst movies ever. AP3 didn't quite suck that badly, but it certainly got into her top 5, even though she watched less than 30 minutes of it.

The sad thing is that the movie looks great, with so much movement and color and sets, and there are tons of jokes and little things all through it that aren't bad. But the script and characters are so horrible, so leaden, that 99% of it just sits there on the screen, lifeless. Every scene comes in with a limp, and goes out with a whimper, if it even manages that much. Most of them just end, as the movie cuts to another equally unfunny and pointless scene, in the sequence of events that sort of passes for a plot.

I'm not going to belabor it any further than I already have, since my original review still sums up most of my "why this movie sucks while the first 2 rocked" but I was shocked at how bad and how boring it was seeing it for the 2nd time ever, 2 years later.  Malaya was just disgusted.

The movie is sort of an odd quandary. If you'd never seen AP 1 and 2 you'd probably think AP3 was very fresh and clever in a lot of ways, but quite a bit of it wouldn't make any sense at all. On the other hand, if you are familiar with the first two AP movies, this one is death on toast since every joke is recycled and familiar and therefore unfunny in comparison to how it was presented the first time (or ten times) you saw it in the first two movies.

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