Austin Powers In Goldmember

It was inevitable that third Austin Powers movie would be, just as it is inevitable that there will be more down the line. Mike Myers has a gift for doing what the general populace thinks is riotously funny. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily mean that the movie is funny. Are there funny moments in the movie? Yes. However, there are many more moments that are failed attempts at laughs. Goldmember's roots hearken back to many of the failed Saturday Night Live movies.

The key to remember is that Goldmember is a bunch of barely related skits with familiar characters. The outrageousness of some of the skits is higher, tempered by the sad fact that many of the jokes that Myers uses are the same. If it was marginally funny the first time around, it is less so the second (or third).

The seventies work well with Austin, and it's a shame that he spends so little time there. If anything, the scattershot approach the script gives shows that the concept is wearing thin. The Austin character is not the main draw, it is all of the other characters and the jokes. And as funny as crude humor can be, it can get tiring quickly. The only way to revive it seems to be to bring in another random Myers incarnation, then throw everybody together and see what happens. Goldmember is the sort of lightweight piffle that is funny for the moment, and loses steam quickly after the viewing.