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Austin Powers: crap/ not crap?

Austin Powers franchise as a whole

  • Crap

    Votes: 19 67.9%

  • Not Crap

    Votes: 9 32.1%
  • Total voters
    28
T & P

T & P

|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|
I’d imagine for many this might seem on the surface an open and shut case. Undoubtedly it’s not exactly sophisticated comedy, and like most other gag-a-minute films of the genre, a sizeable percentage of the jokes fall flat.

But the films (first two at least) are also very funny at places, and more importantly for me, any film or film franchise that produces memorable and enduring characters and quotable catchphrases deserves a lot of recognition. So definitely not crap for me. Convince me otherwise.
 
As an aside thought? Whatever happened to Mike Myers’s acting career? Did he have some kind of breakdown and decided to quit? The Shrek films were phenomenally successful but after them he almost completely quit acting for 6-8 years solid?
 
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The thing was, the basic concept was sound, and it could have worked. . .

I mean, this is funny:

gnPIoZo.jpg
 
I think I might have been told in here (likely as not by Reno ) that it’s not actually the case, but I remember reading somewhere that the Austin Power films’ relentless mocking of many outdated James Bond film cliches (such as over elaborate plans to kill the protagonist with lasers or exotic animals when ‘you could just shoot him, he’s trapped in a cell next door!’ as Dr Evil’s son implores), made Broccoli realise the James Bond franchise was in dire need of refreshing. So some good has come of it :p
 
T & P said:
I think I might have been told in here (likely as not by Reno ) that it’s not actually the case, but I remember reading somewhere that the Austin Power films’ relentless mocking of many outdated James Bond film cliches (such as over elaborate plans to kill the protagonist with lasers or exotic animals when ‘you could just shoot him, he’s trapped in a cell next door!’ as Dr Evil’s son implores), made Broccoli realise the James Bond franchise was in dire need of refreshing. So some good has come of it :p
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Not me, I'm a fan of all the outdatedness :D

The James Bond films reinvented themselves all the time anyway. Austin Powers came out in 1997 and parodied the Bond movies of the 60s and 70s, so I don't see how that would have had an influence on updating Bond, who were in the middle of the a Pierce Brosnan period. The Daniel Craig films didn't start till nearly a decade later and if anything they were more influenced by the then popular Bourne films.
 
Dr No and Thunderball both work decades later - and there's not much from that era you can say that about.

The Seven Year Itch, for example (that's Marilyn and the subway grating movie) is still funny, but not for the original reasons it was meant to be funny.

Anyway. If as Reno argues AP parodies the earlier Bond movies, how about Steve Coogan in a Partridge-esque parody of the later Roger Moore flicks? I still maintain that Moore was the best Bond, by the way.
 
Idris2002 said:
Dr No and Thunderball both work decades later - and there's not much from that era you can say that about.

The Seven Year Itch, for example (that's Marilyn and the subway grating movie) is still funny, but not for the original reasons it was meant to be funny.

Anyway. If as Reno argues AP parodies the earlier Bond movies, how about Steve Coogan in a Partridge-esque parody of the later Roger Moore flicks? I still maintain that Moore was the best Bond, by the way.
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I never found Mike Myers funny, so haven't been a fan of the Austin Powers films anyway. I too love the Roger Moore films the most, at least from The Spy Who Loved Me onwards when they stopped writing for Moore as if he were Connery. They are beyond parody, as they never took themselves seriously anyway.

Agree with you on The Seven Year Itch, it's pretty painful to watch now. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes on the other hand still is great and as close to a feminist film as the 1950s got.
 
GPB is truly great, but the scene where Jane Russell, against all the evidence of our own eyes, insists that she has been saving herself for marriage - come on!

In the original novel of Thunderball, there's a scene where Moneypenny asks Bond why he smokes so much, and he says "well, I don't know what to do with my hands".

To which she replies, "that's not what I heard". I don't think it was ever meant to be taken seriously, somehow.
 
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Idris2002 said:
OK, this one needs a spoiler:

It's at the very end when she and MM are walking down the aisle - JR says something to that effect, the precise words.
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What Dorothy says to Lorelei is "Remember honey, on your wedding day it's alright to say yes.", nothing about herself.


I would have found it hard to believe that Dorothy claims to have saved herself for marriage, considering she has the line "Nobody chaperones the chaperone"earlier on.
 
Reno said:
What Dorothy says to Lorelei is "Remember honey, on your wedding day it's alright to say yes.", nothing about herself.


I would have found it hard to believe that Dorothy claims to have saved herself for marriage, considering she has the line "Nobody chaperones the chaperone"earlier on.
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Yeah, but that's obviously slipped in to keep the Hays Code crowd happy - which to my mind means that it had to apply to both members of our dreaded tag team of terror.
 
Idris2002 said:
Yeah, but that's obviously slipped in to keep the Hays Code crowd happy - which to my mind means that it had to apply to both members of our dreaded tag team of terror.
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I'd interpret that as the gal with a healthy sex life advising her pal who uses her sexuality to hold out till the price is right, that now she can say "yes". In compliance with the Hays code she actually says wedding day, not wedding night so it can be interpreted as saying "yes" at the altar. Anyways having seen the film many times, I was just questioning my memory that Dorothy would claim anything as unlikely as saving herself for marriage.
 
Reno said:
I'd interpret that as the gal with a healthy sex life advising her pal who uses her sexuality to hold out till the price is right, that now she can say "yes". In compliance with the Hays code she actually says wedding day, not wedding night so it can be interpreted as saying "yes" at the altar. Anyways having seen the film many times, I was just questioning my memory that Dorothy would claim anything as unlikely as saving herself for marriage.
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Like I said, it's a great movie, but it is a product of 50s America. Let's not overestimate its liberated character.
 
I don't think I've seen them since they came out. Wayne's World still worked quite well when I saw it recently.
 
Idris2002 said:
Like I said, it's a great movie, but it is a product of 50s America. Let's not overestimate its liberated character.
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I'm not, you claimed that Dorothy has a line where she says she's been saving herself for marriage, which is not the case. That is your interpretation of an ambiguous line of dialogue, where she doesn't even refer to herself. The film has a musical number which is all about her lusting after an entire team of barely dressed, male athletes, so it's hardly subtle about Dorothy's sexuality. :D

 
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Austin Powers and Wayne’s World have a minimum of scenes that amuse me. For me Mike Myers best work was So I Married an Axe Murderer, but I think that was made mostly by the performances from Alan Arkin, Brenda Fricker, Anthony La Paglia and Amanda Plummer.
 
The first one was crude but had some genuinely funny scenes in it but the second and third were just basically recycling the same humour and just flogging the same dead horse.
 
Aw, reminds me of graduating, traveling, Blair etc. My lesbian ex. Guess the film was nicely accommodated by Cool Britannia (even though he's Canadian yesyesyes). And maybe <looking down guiltily> I kinda bought into that moment, and got infected with the uplifting ironic energy of Mike and the Soul Bossa Nova, but was so optimistic that I couldn't concentrate on the film because couldn't help thinking that now under a New Labour government effort will finally be rewarded.
 
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Reno said:
I'm not, you claimed that Dorothy has a line where she says she's been saving herself for marriage, which is not the case. That is your interpretation of an ambiguous line of dialogue, where she doesn't even refer to herself. The film has a musical number which is all about her lusting after an entire team of barely dressed, male athletes, so it's hardly subtle about Dorothy's sexuality. :D

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The details of my life are quite inconsequential... very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds- pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum... it's breathtaking- I highly suggest you try it.
 
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