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.