Austin Powers in Goldmember

Directed by Jay Roach, Austin Powers in Goldmember follows the title character (Myers) as he travels back to the 1970s to rescue his father (Michael Caine’s Nigel Powers) from a Dutch supervillain named Goldmember (Myers). There’s ultimately little doubt that Austin Powers in Goldmember fares best in its fun, briskly-paced first half, as filmmaker Roach, who kicks the proceedings off with an amusing sequence featuring a series of hilarious celebrity cameos, does an effective job of peppering the frenetic narrative with elements of a fairly irresistible nature – including almost everything involving Goldmember and a funny flashback detailing Austin and Dr. Evil’s British Intelligence academy exploits. It’s equally clear, however, that Roach, working from Myers’ and Michael McCullers’ screenplay, has infused the proceedings with an often unreasonably broad, over-the-top feel that grows more and more tiresome, with, especially, the decision to abandon Dr. Evil’s villainous qualities in favor of a more cartoonish, larger-than-life persona undoubtedly ranking high on the movie’s list of misguided attributes (ie it’s just so disappointing, particularly in light of the character’s treatment in the vastly-superior original picture). By the time the lackadaisical and palpably padded-out third act, which seems to transpire entirely within a submarine, rolls around, Austin Powers in Goldmember has certainly cemented its place as a hit-and-miss followup that does, for the most part, only work in short-lived fits and starts.

**1/2 out of ****