Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

There is smart-dumb and there is dumb-dumb. Smart-dumb would explain why I love Get Smart, The Office, The Tick etc. Smart-dumb is ironic, referential, and spoofy or even campy. It takes intelligence to play this kind of idiot and smart people appreciate that. We "get" the in-joke. Dumb-dumb would probably explain why I fail to be impressed with Austin Powers. Dumb-dumb is broad, ham-handed, and schmaltzy. I "get" what they're trying to present as funny, but for the life of me it just isn't. In his Austin Powers persona, Mike Myers has huge bad teeth. (Is this supposed to make fun of the Brits? Lame!) Revived straight from the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s, Austin wears fashion mockeries in purple velvet and his refrain is, "Do I make you horny, baby?" (No woman in her right mind...) I know Austin has lots of fans who find him novel, nostalgic, or even hilarious but speaking for myself: Thud! Starched cat? Not amused. "One million dollars"? Not amused. "Number two"? Not amused. "Throw me a freaking bone here"? Not amused. Killer fembots with guns in their "jumblies"? Not amused (and a little weirded out). I could go on -- but a few marginally chucklesome bits lead me to say "Oh, all right, maybe it's not a total loss": (1) The computer-narrated urination process. (You know that some day all our technology will come to this.) (2) "That's not my p-n-s enlarger!" (I do not appreciate sex-toy jokes at all but the series of verbatim rebuttals was classic.) (3) "Please -- help me! I'm burned! It really hurts!" (A botched incinerant interrupts Dr. Evil's rant.) (4) Seth Green as Dr. Evil's son: "No! Don't put them in the unnecessarily slow dipping mechanism! They'll get away! Listen -- I have a gun in my room! I'll go get it! I'll shoot them! Then they'll be dead!" These bits mainly rely on tweaking movie conventions. I will say this: The movie is smugly self-confident and original for a derivative retrofest. They obviously had a great deal of fun making it and garnered a shipload of fans -- even if it is all "for sh-ts and giggles." 2.5 stars.