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Note: In the following joint Blu-ray review, John and Tim accord their opinions on the three “Austin Powers” films, with John also writing up the Video, Audio, Extras, and Parting Thoughts.

The Films According to John:
In the beginning, there was Alfred Hitchcock. Huh? It was Hitchcock in the 1930s and 40s who helped popularize the mystery-uncertainty espionage picture with that touch of idiom-in-cheek humor against which Hitchcock was pre-eminent. Tip films like “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” “The 39 Steps,” “Secret Agent,” “Sabotage,” “Saboteur,” and “Notorious”? Then in 1953 whilom British Intelligence officer Ian Fleming published the first of his many James Pact novels, “Casino Royale.” In 1959 it was back to Hitchcock, who directed “North By Northwest” with Cary Grant. What does that have to do with anything? When producers Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman decided to make their incipient illustrious-wall off Bond vapour, “Dr. No,” they occupied “North By Northwest” as their model. They, too, wanted a smart, sophisticated spy flick with clever humor, and they went so far as to approach Agree to to play Bond. (Grant wanted too much boodle and wouldn’t do a series.) With the achievement of “Dr. No” and its successors came the Bond imitators and spoofs: “Danger Man” (”Secret Agent”), “The Prisoner,” “I CIA man,” “Get Sting,” “Our Servant Flint,” “In Want Flint,” “Cleopatra Jones,” “Deadlier Than the Male” (Bulldog Drummond), “Matt Helm,” “Top Confidential,” just everywhere anything till the cows come home written by John le Carre (”The Notice Who Came in from the Cold,” “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” “Smiley’s People”), Tom Clancy (Jack Ryan), etc.

Wading into this morass of MI yarns came comic actor Mike Myers, who in 1997 mined the field with his own spy parody “Austin Powers: Intercontinental Man of Novel,” a film that not only poked fun at watch flicks but the whole 1960s’ culture of swinging sex, extravagant clothing, garish colors, and quickly changing public attitudes. As the writer and star of “Austin Powers,” Myers had a affluence of material to work with, and the large screen did well enough that he made two sequels, “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” (1999) and “Austin Powers in Goldmember” (2002). It weight have been think twice for him to resign while he was ahead, but as a remedy for dedicated “Austin Powers” fans, they couldn’t get reasonably.

“International Man of Mystery”
So, things started off with a bang in “International Man of Mystery.” In 1967 London, Austin Powers is a superspy whose cover is that of a eminent construct photographer. Women young and old chase him around as though he were a given of the Beatles. Myers plays him as a fellow with remorseful teeth, a ridiculously hairy strongbox, and outlandishly shallow clothes, whose love of self supercedes all other affections. After a successful run on TV, Myers had only done two movies before this one, “Wayne’s World” and “So I Married an Axe Assassin,” and he was entrancing a chance, as was the studio, with so outrageous a emblem.

To counterbalance Powers’ unconcealed illusion and behavior, Myers also plays the film’s villain, Dr. Evil, a spoof of Bond’s Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Dr. Vice is relatively sedate and unprogressive compared to Powers, and Evil’s only initiative is to present a postpone the world at redemption or bust it up. When Evil thinks his enemies are catching on to him, he cryogenically freezes himself in the interest of thirty years, with Powers doing as well to be ready for him when he thaws out. Go-by forwards to 1997 when Powers continues chasing Evil in a totally new world, “a time when above derive pleasure no longer reigned, and greed and corruption ruled again.”

Poor Austin: Imagine his distress that promiscuous sexual congress and rampant drug throw away weren’t what they used to be. Dr. Evil is up to his accustomed mischief, distressing to extort the same million dollars (uh, a million isn’t what it used to be), a hundred billion dollars from the world’s leaders.

Every so time after time in the film, we see Powers in flashback interludes that copy the pattern of the old-time “Laugh-In” TV show, and the layer does its with greatest satisfaction to refresh old Controls heavies: Robert Wagner plays Mass Two, Evil’s blemished-in-command; Seth Green is Scott Evil, the doctor’s assess-tube son; Pleasure Ferrell has a close as far as someone is concerned as Mustafa, a superior assassin; Fabriana Udenio is Alotta Fagina, a Pussy Galore knockoff; Mindy Sterling is Frau Farbissina, a Rosa Kleb or Irma Bunt pasquinade; Joe Old Sol is Random Task, an Oddjob clone, etc.

On Austin’s side are Mimi Rogers as his 1967 partner, Mrs. Kensington, an Emma Peel typewrite; Elizabeth Hurley as Mrs. Kensington’s daughter, Vanessa, a modern, maverick lady-in-waiting who is Austin’s 1997 wife; and Michael York as Basil Ambition, head of the British Secret Service.

Besides the listed stars, the movie also uses a number of customary faces in uncredited roles. Look for Tom Arnold, Lois Chiles, Carrie Fisher, Strip of Lowe, and Christian Slater, among others.

Directed by Jay Roach (”Meet the Parents,” “Meet the Fockers”), “International Handcuff of Mystery” contains its fair share of bathroom humor, much of it childish, a lot of it gross, and some of it hilarious. There is a particularly peculiar pair of scenes in which a consummately naked Myers and later a absolutely barefaced Hurley go off at a tangent around the organize with their reserved parts artfully and ingeniously obscured.

“And I can’t suppose Liberace was gay… I didn’t see that coming.” –Austin Powers

“The Spy Who Shagged Me”
The second movie, “The Spy Who Shagged Me” (taken from the Bond epithet “The Tail Who Loved Me”), takes up where the basic film ended. However, for convenience account, it needs to get rid of a main character, whom it dumps more readily unceremoniously. Then it goes on to parody “Moonraker,” but little else. No kidding, “The Spy Who Shagged Me” doesn’t so much try to send up other discern films as it tries to a person-up its own predecessor in this flawed go-round.

Myers, who wrote and stars again, seems more self-consciously displaying Austin’s ego and his own, and the movie plays identical satisfactory wisecrack from the first movie into the ground. Not cheerful with simply doing the roles of Austin Powers and Dr. Evil, this on one occasion he also portrays a disgruntled Scottish Guard with an eating unsettle, Fat Bastard, who does Dr. Evil’s dirty travail. Prosperity Bastard is obscenely overweight and is so nasty and so repulsive, he eats babies. For the most part his character is off-putting for the sole welfare of being disgusting. But you won’t tout de suite dismiss from one’s mind him, which I suppose is the point.

The defend in support of a plot in this at one is that Austin has spent his mojo, his union drive. It seems that Dr. Unpleasant has a time machine and returned to a date in the late 1960s after the British Secret Service had frozen Austin’s hull; he has Fat Bastard drain the juices from Austin’s frigid body, and Austin has to use a time device to get it back. Myers is really stretching in this one.

Most of the same shape are back (including Determination Ferrell, who doesn’t pay one’s debt to nature as amusingly in this outing), with a couple of famed additions. Heather Graham plays Felicity Shagwell, a CIA operative with a bigger libido than Austin’s, if that’s workable, and worse acting ability. Prey upon Lowe plays Dr. Evil’s Many Two man in the past, a younger Robert Wagner. And best of all, Verne Troyer steals the reveal as a bantam version of Dr. Unfortunate named Mini-Me.

What was humorous in the first movie now begins to note dead beat, stale, and cast off hat. The film seems more gimmicky and self-lax, with much of the humor phoney and hollow. The gross jokes are grosser than period, although at least one of them, a tent scene, did pounce upon me belittle demode loud once again.

Also, look for more famous cameos: Burt Bacharach, Elvis Costello, Tim Robbins, Willie Nelson, Woody Harrelson, Jerry Springer, Fred Willard, and more.

“Austin Powers in Goldmember”
Mike Myers must have laughed all the way to the bank. Too putrefied he was ditty of the few people laughing. As the “Austin Powers” films became more imitative of themselves and thus less comical, they made more money, with the third and final film in the series, “Austin Powers in Goldmember,” raking in the most slug-office dough of the three. Unfortunately, things went from garden-variety to worse in this entry. If only Myers had quit when he was ahead…he would not have adorn come of as well off.

The title “Goldmember” is obviously a take-quiet on “Goldfinger,” although that’s almost as far as it goes. As he did with the other “Austin Powers” films, Myers fills “Goldmember” with an abundance of bodily innuendo, maybe the most of the three movies, yet in inoperative to get a PG-13 rating, there is no actual going to bed or profanity or nudity involved. Which makes things still smuttier for the duration of the constant, unfulfilled references. Myers knows that the human insight can be more powerful than scant images on the screen, and he takes built advantage to create a cruder, grosser coat than ever.

“Goldmember” begins with a pretty slit homage to the previous “Austin Powers” films, using famous actors, singers, directors, and musicians in outstanding roles. However, after that, it’s downhill; the film-within-a-skin means midget and goes nowhere. The movie’s conspire, which is almost indecipherable and includes a ton of quote business, concerns Dr. Evil kidnapping Austin’s author, necessitating Austin’s using the time make to come to 1975 to deliver him. Or something.

It’s harder than ever to tell who has the bigger ego in the summary, Austin Powers or Mike Myers. This time out, Myers–who co-wrote, co-produced, and stars–plays four characters: Powers, Dr. Damnable, Fat Bastard, and Goldmember. As before, Verne Troyer as Mini-Me has the best gags, although Michael Caine as Austin’s randy, superspy dad does his best to inject a rarely life into the proceedings.

Under other circumstances, it’s more of the same. The old characters are back, with a few new faces: Beyonce Knowles is Foxxy Cleopatra (remember “Cleopatra Jones”?), one of Austin’s old flames and his new advocate partner; and Fred Savage is Billion Three, a mole with a mole. Besides them, there is a whole roster of cameos from Tom Cruise, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito, Steven Spielberg, Quincy Jones, Britney Spears, Nathan Lane, the Osbournes, John Travolta, Burt Bacharach, Rob Lowe, Mandy Moore, and others. They are mostly eye candy.

For me, the “Austin Powers” series started out reasonably well and then began quickly to run not allowed of ideas, the three movies going downhill from a recommendable 6/10 to an average 5/10 to a below-customary 4/10. Stilly, the new Blu-shaft transfers look good and make the movies’ scattering genuine laughs more worthwhile than at all.

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John’s Motion picture Rating on account of the Three Movies: 5/10

The Films According to Tim:
When I think of comedies that remain loyal the assess of time, yet are however hilarious years later and in turn deliver had an affect on culture, the “Austin Powers” films always end up at the top of my list. They are certainly the kind of movies that are meant to be ill-advised, and that’s what makes them tremendously off-the-wall. The impact on background alone has preordained these enjoyable films cult standing, yet they have mature as much mainstream as they have ancient. In all cases since the Austin Powers fad, genesis in the late 90’s, there has been a plethora of cultural effects. Numberless people bring up parts of the movies, such as Austin’s “Yeah, baby” or “Shall we shag right away or later, baby?” Then there’s Dr. Evil’s famous pinky finger to the mouth sign anytime a copious sum of money is mentioned. I’ve literally seen evening news anchors do this gesture, including Katie Couric on the “Today Show” a scarcely any years ago. Obviously a hound of the films, Couric managed even to cook a cameo appearance as a prison safety in “Austin Powers: Goldmember.”