The other day, I was wondering if Mike Myers was ever going to make a third Austin Powers picture. Then I realized I had totally forgotten about “Austin Powers in Goldmember” (2002). And this was Beyonce’s first big movie role! Forgettable!?! It’s not terrible, it’s just overkill. Too much of everything. Too many characters being played by Myers (You’re talented. We get it. Enough already.). Too many cameos (Ozzy Osbourne). Too many jokes ripping off jokes from the previous two films (to the point they felt the need to make fun of the fact they were doing it). It’s tiresome.
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Unpredictability is a key element of humor. Part of the problem with comedy sequels is that you know most of the jokes already. “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” (1999) is like listening to a greatest hits album. It’s well crafted and true to the first installment of the spy-sendup franchise, but that’s also the problem. You want some new stuff, too. And that’s another problem. Heather Graham is great as Austin’s American counterpart but the Fat Bastard and Mini Me characters are so creepy and get so many scenes, it makes the whole thing predictable AND kinda gross.
Patrick Galen Dempsey, born eight days before me in 1966, was once a nerd. I have visual evidence from 1987 vis-a-vis “Can’t Buy Me Love.” In it he plays a high school geek who has a crush on the cheerleading captain. Through the familiar formula in which a nobody makes a deal to become a somebody and loses his moral compass but regains it through implausible soliloquies (while learning a valuable lesson about himself), we briefly see the essence of what would someday become McDreamy. It’s a good time-killer on a lazy afternoon. You’ll wonder whatever became of the cheerleader, Amanda Peterson.
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