Pennywise: The Story of It (2022)

Director: Chris Griffiths

Cast: Tim Curry, Seth Green, Richard Thomas, Tim Reid

Have I Seen it Before: No. Normally wouldn’t have been interested, but it happened to be the right price on iTunes as I enjoyed a glass of wine on Christmas Eve, You might be in for a few strange reviews over the next several months.

Did I Like It: The greatest behind-the-scenes documentary of all time is undoubtedly Hearts of Darkness (1991). To compare this film with that film would be to compare its subject—It (1990)—with something like Citizen Kane (1941). They aren’t in the same league.

This film ultimately runs like a DVD special feature. There’s nothing wrong with that. There are plenty of fascinating special features to watch on DVDs and Blu Rays. The Beginning, the fly-on-the-wall, but still Lucas-approved look at the production of Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) feels comprehensive, even if it may be largely staged.

There’s a fundamental standard of criticism of documentaries as a whole in those examples. Do they have an unusual level of access to its subject, so much so that something candid might rise to the surface? On that level, Pennywise doesn’t even feel the need compete on this level. There probably isn’t that much to reach for in that arena, though. The film itself was only controversial in the context of its airing on prime-time broadcast television. It itself has always been a four hour movie with a few good performances, one great performance, and about five non-consecutive minutes of real terror.

So then we must move on to another criteria. Does this film have anything unique to say about its subject, without blindly drifting into the territory of criticism of the film? No, unfortunately. There are a few anecdotes of note, plenty of earned deference to Curry—without whom there would scarcely be a reason to have a documentary in the first place—and Jonathan Brandis’ early demise, and more than enough talking heads.

Ultimately, though that makes for a completely average DVD special feature. I’m willing to give the affair a pass, as the disc special feature is becoming something of an endangered species, but I can’t imagine I’ll come back to it at any point. I’d probably just listen to the commentary on the DVD itself. If memory serves, both Harry Anderson and John Ritter are on that one, and as one might imagine, not present for the proceedings here.

Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)

Director: Jay Roach

Cast: Mike Myers, Beyoncé Knowles, Michael Caine, Seth Green

Have I Seen It Before?: More on that in a minute.

Did I like it?: Well, here we are again. The only thing that this movie has going for it is a sense of finality, trying to change the characters (sketches, really) enough that if the series were to continue things would never be the same.

But nothing in the films matters, so much so that it is impossible for jokes or gags to exist long enough to make us laugh.

The world is making an Austin Powers movie, complete with celebrity cameos, but the thought is quickly abandoned until the very end, just to fit one more celebrity cameo.

Dr. Evil hatches a plot, and it is forgotten almost as quickly.

A new villain, Goldmember (Myers) is introduced, and has shockingly little to do with the proceedings other than to be weirdly Swedish and eat his own skin.

A new love interest for Powers is introduced in the form of Foxxy Cleopatra (Knowles) and…

Well, she is the best part of the film, somehow managing to look not embarrassed by the proceedings, which should have automatically qualified her for some sort of special Academy Award.

Number Three (Fred Savage, peeking his head out of his grown-up actor retirement for just long enough to send him back to television directing) has a mole. That’s the whole joke. It is, thankfully, quickly forgotten.

Austin has something that might resemble an arc with his father, Nigel (Caine), but it never goes anywhere other than a needless revelation that Powers and Dr. Evil are actually brothers.

All of these notions are introduced and abandoned with the same level of energy that they could certainly put everything back the way they found it for a fourth film, and no one would care. If the world hadn’t moved on from yelling “Yeah, Baby!” to everyone they meet (just in time to start yelling “Why so Serious?” at everyone they meet), we might have had to sit through such a fourth film.

Which brings me to a forthright plea. So, please, Mr. Myers. Do not go back to this well. You’ve had a good run since then, and I’m not talking about the various Shreks or Gurus Love you might wander into. You’re a documentarian, with Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon (2013), and a book, Canada. You were even in Inglourious Basterds (2009). You don’t need Austin Powers. We don’t need Austin Powers.

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)

Director: Jay Roach

Cast: Mike Myers, Heather Graham, Verne Troyer, Seth Green

Have I Seen It Before?: Yeah… Guys, it was the 90s. We didn’t know any better.

Did I like it?: The better question becomes, did I even like it way-back-when? The loving ribbing of early Bond films that was the entire rationale for the first film, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), to exist is largely gone. Although I now realize—having re-watched all three films in a row—that there is plenty left to drain from that tub. And here, the early days of Connery (and Lazenby, judging by Austin’s outfit) are abandoned for a lunar plot so inane that it makes Moonraker (1979) and the other Roger Moore movies look like John le Carré novels.

Maybe its unfair to criticize the plot of a movie that hinges on the hero accidentally drinking the bowel movement of one of the villain’s henchmen, but I maintain that is the case in point. The one gag of the original film that I can honestly say still works involves the villains trying to come up with the plot by which they might hold the world ransom. Hitting any number of walls, they shrug and decide to capture a nuclear weapon. Never has there been a more direct hit on the lazier aspects of the Bond films from which it stems. Here, there is nothing. It’s as if, in place of actually writing, a market research report took the knowledge that these films appeal to teenage boys, and subsequently abandoned everything that might have worked about its freshman effort.

And now that I think about, I was nearly 15 when came out. I guess I need to confess that it did work for me at the time. But the boy that this film did work for is a complete stranger to me.