Comedy, musical, spy thriller and melodrama rolled into one

Film review: Austin Powers in Goldmember

Younger viewers may find the Mike Myers’ hit comedy Austin Powers Goldmember funny but not as funny as the first two episodes, but in fact they may be missing out on ’60s references and some jokes.

The movie is a comic extravaganza, a spoof of 007 and the ’60s era, and some kind of a new millennial update on the spy thriller genre. It is also a musical, with Destiny’s Child’s Beyoncé Knowles in one number and no less than Pop Princess Britney Spears popping up in the curtain-raiser, then John Travolta materializes in the finale. Another number borrows from the musical Annie, the kiddie chorus It’s a Hard Knocks Life turned into a rap piece with breakdancing to boot.

The title sheds new light on an early James Bond villain named Goldfinger, whose finger now seems like a phallic symbol, because the "Goldmember" in the title refers to the genitalia. So that if everything the Bond nemesis Goldfinger touches turns to gold, like King Midas, everything Austin Powers’ Goldmember sticks his, uh, member into turns into... excitement? And you thought the title referred to some credit card status?

It is also how Casino Royale might have been. For the benefit of the new generation of moviegoers, Casino Royale is the title of another James Bond novel turned into a movie in 1967, but unlike the Albert Broccoli-Harry Salzman franchise, it is a spoof, with novelist Ian Fleming’s hero played by three actors–David Niven, Peter Sellers, and, would you believe, Woody Allen?

In Austin Powers Goldmember, it’s the reverse – the principal star (Myers) plays seven characters, from hero and heel, to villains (Dr. Evil and Goldmember). It’s as though Myers is trying to put one over other comedians who have played multiple roles, like Eddie Murphy in Nutty Professor, Michael Keaton in Multiplicity, and Peter Sellers in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Tony Randall played seven different characters in George Pal’s Seven Faces of Dr. Lao in 1964).

And like Casino Royale, Goldmember boasts of an all-star cast. The likes of Orson Welles, William Holden, Ursula Andres, Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Paul Belmondo, and the great Deborah Kerr populate Casino, while Michael Caine, Michael York and a bevy of super-extras are seen in Goldmember, among these extras being Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise, Gwyneth Paltrow, Nathan Lane, Kevin Spacey, Burt Bacharach.

When Mike Myers was younger, he looked to me like our own Joey de Leon (when Joey was also younger), except that Myers is lucky enough not to experience now what Joey did in this town when his Roborats and Starzan were shown in the late ’80s. More movie trivia here: Poor Joey had to suffer the slings and arrows of straight-arrow folk who threw brickbats at him for the so-called vulgar and toilet humor of his movies. Today, such kind of humor is de rigeuer in current Hollywood gross-out movies. Could it be Joey de Leon was ahead of his time?

Vulgar and toilet humor is in abundance in Goldmember. It’s all here: defecation, micturation, flatulence (if you don’t know what these words mean, you may look them up in the dictionary).

Then there are sexual innuendoes. A submarine which Goldmember rides in in his quest for world domination is described as "long and hard and full of seamen."

A silhouette sequence brings a hysterical moment of untruth–and gross, high jinks. It shows Austin Powers hiding a midget character called Mini Me (Dr. Evil’s diminutive physical clone, alter ego, and surrogate son) in his hospital gown. This, while following a doctor’s instructions, accidentally projecting on the other side of the curtain sexually suggestive movements, forms and shapes.

The movie does not care about political correctness. The vertically-challenged Mini Me is subjected to a most cruel and brutal–but also hilarious–act of violence while an ally, Fred Savage, sporting a large, disturbing mole in his face and looking like a young, funny Mel Gibson, entertains a phone call (Savage is the other kid–who couldn’t fly–in the ’80s movie The Boy Who Could Fly).

Moviegoers may also howl in laughter but later be appalled by the idea that a sexy pair of identical Japanese twins are named Fook Mi and Fook Yu.

For all the lunacy, raunchiness, and cynicism in this jokefest, some human melodrama, specifically father-son bonding, touches moviegoers’ hearts as well as it tickles the funnybone. This centers around Austin’s relationship with his father (Caine, who like Sean Connery, the James Bond incarnate, was an iconic ’60s movie spy).

Don’t look now but things can get more complicated: could their arch-enemy Dr. Evil be a blood kin? Meanwhile, Dr. Evil transfers his attentions from his erstwhile favored Mini Me to another guy, hurting the feelings of Mini Me who has looked up to him as a father. So there you have a family feud, characterized by recriminations, sibling rivalry, affection and disaffection, estrangement, vendetta, but also reconciliation, acceptance, love.

All this drama in one crazy action-comedy? Can’t wait for the next episode.