Movie review: Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me

Originally published July 9, 1999, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1338

It’s depressing not being a target audience. It’s disconcerting feeling one’s age. And it’s particularly uncomfortable when one feels that way when lots of other people are around, as was the case when I saw Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.

I went with Gwen, my fourteen-year-old, except I didn’t really. She actually went with several friends, and I was obliged to sit on the opposite side of the theater so that no one could remotely, possibly, think that by some incredible happenstance, she was with me. (This is as opposed to the times that she is at a convention with me, where she’s all-too-happy to bop around dealer’s rooms, bat her eyes at exhibitors, and say, “Hi, I’m Peter David’s daughter, can I get a discount?” Oh yeah, then she wants to associate me. Ah, well…)

With a film such as Shagged, it is imperative that one turn one’s mind off. Unfortunately, as eager as the assorted teenagers around me were to do so, I found I could not. Nor, as it turned out, could Gwen, nor could my eldest, Shana—at least, not completely. I suppose I should be proud. Instead I feel a bit sorry for them. Some of the things they, and I, tripped over throughout the film were:

(Warning: Spoilers for some aspects of Shagged. Right. As if a film that fans will see a hundred times is going to be harmed by discussion of story elements.)

1) How could Vanessa (Elizabeth Hurley) possibly have been a Fembot when she was clearly shown as having a mother the previous film? Was her mom a fembot, too?

2) The first film clearly established that Austin Powers (Mike Myers) was put into suspended animation until the year 1997. The sequel begins with a copyline that informs us we’re “later that night” in following up on Austin and Vanessa’s honeymoon. But Shagged is clearly established as being set in 1999. What happened to the intervening two years? That is one incredibly long honeymoon. “Oh behave!” indeed.

3) Mini-Me is ostensibly one eighth the size of Doctor Evil (also Myers). Mini-Me can be considered to be 32 inches (the height of the actor who plays him). Based on that, we have to conclude that Doctor Evil is around sixteen feet tall. Either that or, if we guess that Dr. Evil is no taller than six feet, that would mean that Mini-Me has to be about nine inches high, which he obviously is not.

4) If Austin, in best Dorothy of Oz style, didn’t really need his mojo to function as was claimed in the denouement—if, in short, it was all in his mind–then how could its theft thirty years previously have possibly affected him some thirty years later when he was in bed with Ivana Humpalot (3rd Rock‘s Kirsten Johnson, gone entirely too soon from the film)?

After all, if the need was purely psychological, he couldn’t have known that it was gone in the first place. For that matter, if it was indeed stolen in the late 60s, then it was gone by the time Austin thawed in the late 90s. Anything done to the Austin in the past must impact on the Austin of present day. That is to say, he should never have had his mojo at any point in the second film—or the first, for that matter.

And the most important question of all: Why would anyone in his right mind be concerned about such things when the film obviously isn’t?

I suppose the problem is that I felt as completely out of his proper time as Austin was. The things that I got the biggest kick out of went right past the kids seated near me. In fact, when I laughed out loud at them, they stared at me since they couldn’t quite grasp just what it was I found so amusing. In a way, I guess I should be upset. Austin Powers has made it impossible for any new viewers to take any of the early Bond films seriously. How could any kid just being introduced to Blofeld, for instance, possibly refrain from saying “Throw me a frickin’ bone here” when they see him stroking his cat.

Then again, how many kids are ever going to bother to seek the films out? Which is a shame, since it would make them better able to appreciate some of the absurdist angles that the film takes. It was depressing to be the only one laughing when Felicity emerged from the surf clad in a bathing suit identical to that worn by Ursula Andress in Dr. No.

Likewise, when Austin caught a reflection of an assassin in the eye of a dance partner, he used her as a human shield just as Bond did in Goldfinger—although in Bond’s case, she collapsed after a single bullet. For Austin, his makeshift buffer not only survived the first bullet, but withstood a full clip from a machine gun, a bazooka, and a fall of approximately twenty stories. Me, I thought that was funny as hell, because I had the original point of reference in my head.

What worked for the rest of the audience, on the other hand, didn’t remotely work for me. When Austin inadvertently drinks a stool sample (ruining forever the image of the “Got Milk?” ads, which might not be such a bad thing), it took the audience about five minutes to compose itself. I haven’t heard that much sustained laughter since Indiana Jones’ dad informed him the he knew Ilsa was a Nazi because “she talks in her sleep.” I just kind of sat there. I wasn’t grossed out by it, anymore than I was bothered by other gross-out points (such as the incredibly obese Scotsman) because I just felt kind of removed from it.

Oh my God, he’s drinking liquid crap! Well, no, it’s just some colored water or something.

Oh my God, Fat Bastard is so gross! Well, no, it’s a massive rubber suit with crumbs.

It didn’t prompt any reaction from me other than rolling my eyes.

Although, I do freely admit that I find Doctor Evil much more entertaining than Austin himself. It’s probably because Austin is a send up of a very specific type of particular Brit spy (which was self-parody even in its heyday), whereas Doctor Evil (Blofeld-origins aside) is iconic, a take-off on virtually every mastermind/evil scientist/super villain whose plans would succeed if he would just put a gun to the hero’s head and pull the trigger—as the increasingly contemptuous Scott Evil is quick to point out. If there’s a third film, Scott has GOT to get more screen time.

The thing is, there’s all this talk now about how gross comedies are becoming these days. I found myself wishing I could de-age myself somehow and figure out whether my inability to “appreciate” them came from the concept that I was the wrong age, or whether the films just weren’t funny. Then I realized that, in a way, I could. So I tossed on my laserdisc of Animal House, which I saw when I was—if not just the right age—a lot closer to it than I am now.

Geez, what a gross film. What an utter celebration of mindlessness and juvenile attitudes. What a debauched and tasteless waste of celluloid. What a great movie.

I mean, really—is there any more glorious moment in film history than John Belushi’s Bluto, confronted by the snobbiness of the rival fraternity members declaring him to be a pig, asking, “See if you can guess what I am now?” Whereupon he shovels mashed potatoes into his mouth, engorging his cheeks, then slams his fists into the sides of his face, discharging the milky white contents over the snobby onlookers. “I’m a zit? Get it?” he announces, whereupon the all-too-short food fight breaks out.

I came to the horrific and very depressing realization that if Animal House was first released today, I would very probably not enjoy it at all. For that matter, if the film were remade, they’d probably have to jack the grossness level way up in order to pull in the desired audience.

Perhaps that’s part of what’s so frustrating for many older comic fans. Books that come out now are judged using adult standards or criteria formed by exposure to increasingly sophisticated entertainment. Meantime, we can re-read books that we enjoyed in our youth, stories that, if they were first published now, we know in our heart of hearts that we would say, “How stupid. How juvenile. How tortured is the logic, how crude is the artwork, how absurd are the plot twists that come out of left field.”

Books such as Tom Strong endeavor to recapture the charm of such bygone days, and many fans don’t know how to react to such a book, viewing it as sinful or wrongheaded or just plain stupid to try and “roll the clock back,” as it were. It’s as if any effort to produce a “retro” comic is suspect, or insincere, or viewed as a cold-hearted, calculated ploy to play on the youthful recollections of fans. It’s almost as if there’s a self-loathing involved for many fans, wanting to experience the same reactions that comics gave us in our youth, but resenting any attempts to produce comics that do so, and knowing in our hearts that even the comics we really did like as kids wouldn’t pass muster anymore.

What is the answer, I wonder? Only one really comes to mind:

“Oh, behave!”

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)