Austin Powers: The Often Quoted and Thrice Duplicated

I think it's a relatively well known fact that one of the strongholds of male conversation is pop culture or to be more specific funny quotes from the comedies of the day. So if you're about my age and can remember back about ten years (I know it's scary) you may harken back to middle school when this movie was your one stop shop for conversation between dudes. I know I personally started quoting this movie before I even saw it as a defense mechanism since there were a multitude of Scott related quotes to go with the movie. Thankfully I was able to master a decent Dr. Evil impression and deflect most of the attention into a look what I can do scenario. But as the years have passed and the lines have been used beyond the point of being funny anymore I began to ignore these three films in my collection. But with at least three years (if not more) separating me and each of these movies there's no time like the present to view it with an outsiders eye.

So for those who may forget the movie is a parody of James Bond films with Mike Myers playing both the lead and the villain. However instead of being in his time Mr. Powers finds himself squaring off against his nemesis in the late nineties in world far different from his own. To help him along the way is Elizabeth Hurley doing her best not to be the cliched sexy girl. Dr. Evil in the meantime has to deal with becoming a new father and threatens to kill the entire world unless his demands are met.

Now as a fan of the Bond franchise this movie is probably the best in terms of roasting the series. For instance, Dr. Evil is based entirely on the character Blofeld cat and all. Even the really immature jokes such as one of the henchwoman's inappropriate names is really just an homage to much more explicit names like Pussy Galore. I don't know how they got a PG rating with a name like that in the movie. I really don't.
My favorite joke still has to be when Dr. Evil's son points out how easy it would be to ensure that Powers is no longer a threat to him as Dr. Evil insists that this is the way he does things even if they are idiotic in nature. I even now get the reference to the man dressed as a woman joke in which the person in the shot is clearly a woman and then clearly a man dressed as a woman.

The other jokes are little more hit or miss. Some of them have been used up so much that they'll need their own time in a hyperbolic chamber to become funny again such as the phrase "yeah baby". Mike Myers also seems to have this obsession with beating a joke to death by himself. It occurs in every movie at least once where he will start a joke that's kinda funny and then repeat enough that it gets funnier but then keeps repeating it so much that it loses its appeal.

I will say though even this movie has a wonderful collection of cameos. We get to see Will Ferrell in a wonderful bit part as Mustafa the henchman that simply will not die. Seth Green who will always look like a teenager does a great job playing well a teenager. The one that threw me was Carrie Fisher who is actually the woman that runs the father son group that Dr. Evil and Scott visit. Granted I shouldn't be surprised considering the number of cameo roles she's pulled off but it still threw me.

This is a movie where the nostalgia effect was certainly high and I wanted it to be as funny as possible. Sadly nothing will ever reach my insanely high expectations but the movie is still worth a couple of giggles and is definitely the right length for a comedy at eighty to ninety minutes rather than a full two hours or more. So if you're willing to fast forward through a few overused catch phrases and see it for what it really is a spot on parody that doesn't even change aspects from the old Bond films that you'll enjoy yourself. That being said it stands to reason if you didn't find it funny then you won't find it funny now.