Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
Directed by Jay Roach
As a swinging fashion photographer by day and a groovy British superagent by night, Austin Powers is the '60s' most shagadelic spy. But can he stop megalomaniac Dr. Evil after the bald villain freezes himself and unthaws in the '90s? With the help of sexy sidekick Vanessa Kensington, he just might.
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9 films that influenced this film
What critics say influenced Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
James Coburn's In Like Flint and Dean Martin's Matt Helm are the most famous of these.
For one thing, it's easier to recognize the source material being satirized: He's sending up Spectre's Ernst Blofeld, 007's mortal enemy in several Bond pictures; particularly the Blofeld wearing a gray Nehru suit and cradling a white cat in You Only Live Twice.
The villainous Dr. Evil is modeled upon You Only Live Twice's version of Blofeld (played in that movie by Donald Pleasance).
Actually, the best Bond movies aren't even from the series: "True Lies" is as romantic as it is action-packed, and "Austin Powers" is ten times more fun than the Bond films it spoofs!
Evil's Asian henchman, Random Task, is a dead ringer for Goldfinger's Oddjob.
The title "Goldmember" is obviously a take-off on "Goldfinger," although that's almost as far as it goes.
Shortly after Sean Connery introduced us to the world of guns, gadgets, and girls in the spy classic Dr. No, Hollywood began satirizing the role.
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Then it goes on to parody "Moonraker," but little else.
The second movie, "The Spy Who Shagged Me" (taken from the Bond title "The Spy Who Loved Me"), takes up where the first film ended.
Based on the late '60s/early '70s TV series Depp loved as a kid, "Dark Shadows" stirs elements that by now require major inspiration to stand out from every other eccentric character existing at an incongruous time ("Encino Man," "Austin Powers" to name just a few) and countless recent vampires laboring to protect their families and control the need for blood.
Now, with the resurgence of Bond as a result of 1995's Goldeneye, spoofing the spy genre is again in vogue.
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The title character in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, he's the latest bit of silliness from the energetic comic mind of Mike Myers, who previously gave us the warped-out cable-access TV nerds of Wayne's World and the haggis-loving, kilt-wearing Scots of So I Married an Axe Murderer.
There are some moments of intelligence and wit sprinkled throughout, such as some wonderfully bawdy sight gags and knowing jokes about spy movie conventions, James Bond films, and kitschy '60s culture, but there aren't as many in evidence as there were in Myers's more effective and biting Wayne's World films.
A send-up of '60s spy movies, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery is a mix of dead-on parody, original absurdity, and a bit of trite bathroom humor that finds Michael Myers (Wayne's World) embracing silly material with both a giddy enthusiasm and a sarcastic wink.
But unlike Myers' most famous creation, Wayne of "Wayne's World," Austin Powers never transcends his cartoonish origins, and the movie leans far too hard on its art direction for laughs.
Both roles are played by Mike Myers , who has the same spirit of getting away with something that was so infectious in " Wayne's World ".
Myers, creator of "Wayne's World" with Dana Carvey, and host of the famed "Coffee Talk" segments on "Saturday Night Live," wrote this hilarious script.