Product Description

Upon learning that his father has been kidnapped austin powers must travel to 1975 and defeat the aptly-named villain goldmember - who is working with dr. Evil. Studio: New Line Home Video Release Date: 12/09/2008 Starring: Mike Myers Seth Green Run time: 95 minutes Rating: Pg13

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3835 in DVD
• Brand: Austin
• Released on: 2002-12-03
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 94 minutes

Amazon.com
Despite symptoms of sequelitis, Austin Powers in Goldmember is must-see lunacy for devoted fans of the shagadelic franchise. Unfortunately, the law of diminishing returns is in full effect: for every big-name cameo and raunchy double-entendre, there's an equal share of redundant shtick, juvenile scatology, and pop-cultural spoofery. All is forgiven when the hilarity level is consistently high, and Mike Myers--returning here as randy Brit spy Austin, his nemesis Dr. Evil, the bloated Scottish henchman Fat Bastard, and new Dutch disco-villain Goldmember--thrives by favoring comedic chaos over coherent plotting. Once they've tossed Austin into the disco fever of 1975 (where he's sent to rescue his father, gamely played by Michael Caine), Myers and director Jay Roach seem vaguely adrift with old and new characters, including Verne Troyer's Mini-Me and pop star Beyoncé Knowles as Pam Grier-ish blaxpo-babe Foxxy Cleopatra. A bit tired, perhaps, but Powers hasn't lost his mojo. --Jeff Shannon

DVD features
Not surprisingly, deleted scenes and outtakes are the hands-down highlights of Goldmember's abundant Infinifilm features. Mike Myers's throwaway gags are funnier than Pauly Shore's entire career, revealing how a relaxed set encourages a flood of inspired improvisation. The Infinifilm feature is a handy, alternative method of seeing (and hearing) all of the bonus materials in logical sequence, mostly comprising behind-the-scenes featurettes devoted to costumes, special effects, all-star cameos, make-up, and various "social and historical" aspects of the Austin Powers franchise. The Myers/Jay Roach commentary track is worth a listening for Myers's casual jocularity (and his decent willingness to give credit to others), but their Hollywood compliments, while obviously sincere, eventually grow tiresome. More enjoyable are the pop-up subtitles in the DVD's "Fact Track" feature, adding lighthearted factoids to enhance an already very funny movie. Taken together, these features emphasize the productive camaraderie of the Austin Powers team and the devoted seriousness that the filmmakers bring to their pursuit of the next big laugh. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker
Comedic comfort food. After a spectacular opening salvo (loaded with cameos), the third installment of the swinging-spy shag-ology settles into familiar terrain: Dr. Evil (one of the four roles played by Mike Myers) doing his nefarious best to take over the world. Once again, Myers displays his gift for mimicry and his ability to mix it up with a midget. His cast includes an electric Beyoncé Knowles as his female sidekick and a dapper yet underused Michael Caine as his dad; they're ebullient foils to the script's formless frenzy. -Bruce Diones
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Funny
If you liked Austin Powers, then you will like this movie. But, it has some bad parts.

Very Funny !
This is one of my favorite comedy movies ! All the trillogy are so good!

Gilding the silly: Austin Powers in Goldmember
Say anything three times and it's funny, according to the secret rules of sure-fire comedy (the same rules that say the word "chicken" is unfailingly a rib-tickler). Austin Powers in Goldmember, Mike Myers's third incarnation of his gormless but irrepressible swinging sixties British spy, really is pretty funny.

After three movies and six years of the shagadelic, flouncy-shirted, buck-toothed homunculus and his ever-expanding cartoon world, it's become easier to surrender than resist. Place it against Men in Black or Mr. Deeds or any of a host of other barren summer comedies and the difference is obvious: Myers's sheer fertility of invention is of a different order, and even if he misses as often as he hits, he's definitely a swinger.

Even if the gag-to-wince ratio isn't high, there are enough punchlines thrown here to make a sphinx smirk. Father, forgive me, I must confess: I sprayed my popcorn.

Powers, the self-adoring spy whom Myers says he invented one day while riding back from hockey practice and listening to Dusty Springfield sing The Look of Love on the radio, is not so much a spy spoof (the sixties were already crawling with spy spoofs) as nostalgic sixties anglophilia: Think of it as James Bond crossed with the Carry-On Gang, or maybe Jerry Lewis imagining he's Cary Grant. The character(s) -- Myers plays four parts here, three of them villains -- finds that tightrope between enviable childish narcissism and obnoxiousness where much comedy struts.

The successor to the massive success of the $200-million second instalment of the series, The Spy Who Shagged Me, starts off with a large bang, and not, this time, of the sexual nature. Instead, it's a series of scenes from a film within the film, featuring a cast of stars way too famous to be named and an action stunt that should make the James Bond franchise pack up its product placements and go home.

Dr. Evil, Myers's best character, with his pinky-chewing and air quote signs and poor ability at higher numbers, takes centre stage early. Having found a way of taking his unscrupulous behaviour into legitimate business by taking over a Hollywood agency business (he charges just 9 per cent instead of the usual 10), he's stationed himself in a lair above the Hollywood sign and is concocting one of his usual plans to blackmail the world's leaders for a largish amount of money.

The entire evil cast (with the exception of the bald cat, Mr. Bigglesworth, who seems to have dropped out between trailer and movie) is back -- Dr. Evil's annoying son, Scott (Seth Green); Dr. Evil's silent clone, Mini-Me (Verne Troyer), who proves he has a mind of his own, and the rest of the Evil cast, including Number Two (Robert Wagner) and Frau Farbissina (Mindy Sterling). Myers hides himself under a couple of tonnes of makeup as an obese Scotsman, Fat Bastard, who is in love with his own body effluents.

Myers also plays a new Dutch villain called Johann Van Der Smut, a middle-aged seventies playboy nicknamed Goldmember (regrettable smelting accident), who enjoys roller-skating, disco dancing and eating strips of his overtanned skin.

The best piece of casting falls on the side of good, with Michael Caine as Nigel, Austin's swinging, and insufficiently paternal, spy dad. Caine (who himself played a bespectacled spy in The Ipcress File) looks the part, and turns on some real actor intensity, especially in his raging declaration that he hates intolerance and Dutch people.

Austin, for some reason, has to travel back to swinging Manhattan to "Studio 69," to rescue his dad, who has been captured by the evil Van Der Smut. There, he teams up with Pam Grier-inspired Foxxy Cleopatra, played by pop diva Beyoncé Knowles of Destiny's Child, who has great abs and a way of looking at Austin as if she just scraped him off the bottom of her platform shoes.

There's no doubt that Goldmember has its long flaccid stretches, and a good deal of repetition of familiar gags: shadow play, inadvertently obscene subtitles and an assortment of euphemisms for genitalia. At times, Myers's toilet-bowl humour overfloweth.

The strategy here is the basic Mel Brooks string o' gags school of comedy. While it's not high wit, it never stops trying and, occasionally, as in the prison-rap number inspired by Hard Knock Life from Annie, the results are inspired.

A flashback to Austin and Dr. Evil's early days at the Intelligence Academy, for example, shows a savvy such scenes rarely manage; the young actors are close enough physically to the adult characters, but what makes it work is Myers's dubbing in their adult voices.

Fourth-time Austin Powers is a spectre that can only arouse apprehension. No one can look forward to a bigger role for Van Der Smut (or bigger rolls for Fat Bastard). Who cares if Mini-Me decides to talk? But taking a page from the International Man of Mystery, let's not worry about the future when the present (and past) are groovy. When it comes to Austin Powers, three's a charm. Conrad Alton, Filmbay Editor.