Gold Member

The third movie of the Powers trilogy is almost exactly what I expected. The funniest parts are shown in the commercials, the jokes from the first two movies are repeated almost verbatim, and it is relatively funny (see it with a big crowd of people).

Unfortunately what I didn’t expect was that more than one fourth of the film would be taken up by musical numbers and rock acts and that any semblance of a plot would be missing.

At the beginning, in between my laughter, I kept asking myself, “When is this movie going to start”? Once it started I kept wondering, “When is this movie going to end”? (Ok, you saw that coming, right?)

Now some have questioned whether this was planned. a sort of “over the over the top” movie (yes, there are two “over the”s in there, I’m not a freakin’ idiot). Well, I’d have to say, if that were the case, that it was a bad idea. I think we’d all be better off if great comedies also contained great stories and great writing. I would love to see revived Hitchcock’s British subtlety, great comic teams like Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor, or the dialogue and character development of When Harry Met Sally. Unfortunately, in this movie, we are stuck with recycled material and degrading jokes.

My recommendation to Mr. Myers is to either let Austin Powers die with this movie or to write one final grand extravaganza to renew my faith in his abilities and to refresh the comedy genre.

My recommendation to the potential viewers is to see Goldmember if you are especially fond of the humor you’ve seen in the previous two movies. If you want to save some cash, rent it. or better yet, borrow it from a friend.