Review of Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997) by Stefan G — 01 Jan 2015

I used to think that this movie was really good, but naturally, as I got older, my tastes changed significantly. To put it bluntly, I don't like this film as much as I used to, but it does have its moments.

As a sharp deconstruction of the '60's mentality, it works quite effectively, even if it inevitably runs into a number of campy stereotypes. As a parody of the old-style of Bond films, it works almost as well, but I find that it gives way too much away, almost as though you have to have seen the Bond films in order to really appreciate the film.

To me, this is a film that does all it can to present Bond as a relic of the '60's, but I find this to be futile, since it's already obvious to me that Bond was an outdated relic of the Cold War (as brilliantly summed up by M in GoldenEye).

If it succeeds at anything, it's that it's actually quite funny. It may not be as clever as other comedy films, or even other parody films, but mainly because of Mike Myers' confident performance, it works.