Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

One of the big hits of 1997 was Mike Myers and Jay Roach’s first Austin Powers film, which struck a chord with the public on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond despite initially damning reviews. A spoof of not only James Bond but his many imitators and “spy-fi” shows like The Avengers (1961-1969), it takes the classic “fish out of water” comedy scenario and filters it through the lens of 1960s nostalgia.

In 1967, British secret agent Austin Powers (Myers) is cryogenically frozen when his arch enemy Dr Evil (also Myers) escapes, also frozen, in a space rocket. Revived in 1997, Dr Evil plans to steal nuclear weapons and hold the world hostage for $1 million (he’s subsequently advised that $1 million doesn’t buy as much as it once did…) and also learns that he has a resentful, twenty-something son, Scott (Seth Green), artificially created using Evil’s frozen semen. Powers is also revived and teams up with Vanessa Kensington (Elizabeth Hurley), the daughter of his 60s sidekick Mrs Kensington (Mimi Rogers), to battle Evil and his army of deadly female androids.

Taking inspiration from all over the place, but most notably Bond, Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-up (1966), Richard Lester’s Beatles comedy A Hard Day’s Night (1964), Russ Myer’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) (“this is my happening and it freaks me out!”), the Harry Palmer, Derek Flint and Matt Helm films, the Dr Goldfoot films (which also featured Fembots) and all manner of late 1960s cultural touchstones, Austin Powers is, appropriately, a kaleidoscopic rag bag of influences and references that is occasionally very funny but never quite as clever as Myers in particular seems to think it is. Burdened by a preponderance of knob gags and (literal) toilet humour, a lot of it terribly obvious and crude when a lighter touch was necessary and curiously it’s starting to look as out of time today as Bond was when this film was made.

As a character, Powers had been around for a while, first appearing as a member of the faux 1960s rock band Ming Tea (who turn up here in fun psychedelic interstitials) formed by Myers with Matthew Sweet and former Bangles guitarist and singer (and Roach’s wife) Susanna Hoffs for a series of Saturday Night Live (1975-) skits (their minor hit single BBC turns up here during the end credits). Inspired by his then wife, Myers wrote a script centering around his Ming Tea persona, transforming him into the now familiar sex-obsessed secret agent for the first of what would eventually become a trilogy of films.

When it’s good, International Man of Mystery is very funny indeed. The fractious relationship between Dr Evil and Scott, nicely played by consummate 90s slacker Green, is particularly amusing (their therapy session is a hoot), there’s a nice bit of silliness involving a slow moving steamroller and surprisingly Hurley gets a lot of the best gags, the thoroughly modern Vanessa constantly, and mostly inadvertently, emasculating the sex-obsessed, misogynist Powers by being smarter, more resourceful and packing a bigger gun. But the film runs out of steam, getting most of its best gags out of the way early doors and settling into a repetitive rut.

Powers is a short, unattractive man with terrible teeth, as preoccupied with bedding Vanessa and any other woman who crosses his path as with thwarting Evil and part of the humour is derived from the fact that this unlikely Lothario is both outdated in his attitudes and also ill-equipped to live out the swinging lifestyle he aspires to – there’s a running gag about his need for a “Swedish-made penis enlargement pump.” He’s certainly no dashing, sexy super spy like Bond. Interestingly, even in 1997, Powers was as much an anachronism as the contemporary Bond – in Goldeneye (1995), Pierce Brosnan’s incarnation of 007 was dismissed by his boss M (Judi Dench) as a sexist, misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War,” as spot-on a description of Powers as you could get. International Man of Mystery may be in thrall to the cultural iconography of the 1960s but its most potent barbs are aimed at the contemporary incarnation of Bond.

Despite its critical trashing, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery clicked with the public and was a huge hit for Myers and Roach. And although it’s not quite as funny as it could be, it was certainly a lot better than Rick Friedberg’s Leslie Nielsen-starring catastrophe Spy Hard released the year before. Its success led to a sequel, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) which was pretty much more of the same – if you loved the first film, then this sequel gave you exactly what you were hoping for, even if it was just the same old shtick being trotted out again – before the trilogy came down to Earth with a bump with the terrible Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002). In the years since, Myers has talked of a possible fourth installment though as the series ran out of decent gags alarmingly early, it’s perhaps no surprise that no such film has yet appeared.