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June 26, 2002
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FEATURED MOVIE
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'Austin Powers in Goldmember'
The cameo-driven, "Mission: Impossible 2"-spoofing, movie-within-a-movie, title sequence of "Austin Powers in Goldmember" is the funniest five minutes to date in this spy comedy franchise. Then Mike Myers shows up and ruins everything. Still trapped in a skit-comedy frame of mind, his short attention span has made this movie little more than a string of brief, losely-related set pieces which are often 98 percent setup and 2 percent punch line. This time Blofeldian baddie Dr. Evil (Myers) teams up with a new and more obnoxious, disco-loving villain named Goldmember (Myers) to defeat mock-suave secret agent Powers (Myers). While the movie has a head-spinning lack of continuity as it grasps for highly telegraphed, self-referencing jokes, it does have two high points: Michael Caine is a perfectly cast hoot as Austin Powers' retired super-spy father, and 2-foot 32-inch actor Verne Troyer once again steals scenes as Dr. Evil's 1/8-size clone Mini Me. But the film's laughs are scattershot and wildly inconsistent, while the rudimental pee- and poo-level gags are relentless, demonstrating a distinct lack of creative ambition on the Myers' part.
** out of **** (96m | PG-13) (Full review)
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