Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)-"PG-13"

Run Time:100 minutes

2 and 1/2 stars out of 4

I walked into Austin Powers in: Goldmember (2002), I must admit, with quite a bit of skepticism and even a little dread. The fart jokes and potty humor overkill coupled with the bludgeoning of repetitive jokes (i.e. the whole "zip it" charade) had made the previous Austin Powers film, The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) practically unbearable. Yet however, this third installation in the Austin Powers franchise was not without its charm. The plot of Goldmember is pretty basic: Suave British secret agent Austin Powers (Mike Myers) is needed yet again to save the world after Dr. Evil (Myers also) and his evil corporation have hatched another evil plan that threatens the free world. This time the scheme involves another evil genius, Goldmember (Myers again), a Dutchman who is obsessed with gold, and who even lost his genitalia in "an unfortunate smelting accident." Together Goldmember and Evil plan to again ransom the world with the threat of attracting a comet made of gold with a giant electro-magnet. In order to keep Powers from foiling their efforts this time, they kidnap his father from present-day England, Nigel Powers (Michael Caine) and hide him in the 1970's. Powers, though, figures this out and transports himself back in time to rescue his father, and along the way enlists help from a former girlfriend and detective Foxy Cleopatra (Beyoncé Knowles). The duo, this time with the help of Evil's miniature clone, Mini-Me (Verne Troyer), travels back and forth through time and all over the world in the pursuit of Evil, but the details of the plot don't really matter anyway, they merely serve as a backdrop to Myers's comedic dialogue and gags. However, considering that these jokes and skits are really what make the film worth watching, so the confusing and irrelevant plot aren't really a bother anyway. Mercifully on Meyer's part, the jokes in Goldmember were usually rather short-lived and you weren't repetitively beaten over the head with them, like some annoying cousin saying, "You get it, huh, you get it?" Also, there were a few genuinely funny moments, especially in the opening scene where quite a surprising cast has cameos. Besides the somewhat enjoyable one-liners, this film was greatly helped by the presence of Michael Caine, a genuine Brit, who brought out a comedic side and even helped to lend the film some credibility, along with Myers himself, who was his usual energetic self, completely immersed in his characters and their shticks. Beyoncé Knowles, on the other hand, did not seem to benefit from Myers's or Caine's experience and skill. Her timing was off, her lines were extremely over-acted, and her character, Foxy Cleopatra, came across as completely flat and added nothing to the story. There was an obvious lack of chemistry between her and Myers as well, although the non-stop jokes of the dialogue allowed basically no time for any real development of the love interest or development of Foxy Cleopatra. In the end, though, Austin Powers in Goldmember turned out to better than hoped, and its numerous obvious flaws were outweighed by the well-timed shenanigans of Myers, tasteless though it may be at times. At the end of Goldmember there is an obvious reference to a future movie, so maybe there is hope for Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery, after all.