“I’m from Holland! Isn’t that vierd?”

PoolMan’s Rating: More like a jogging gag.

PoolMan’s Review: Austin Powers has boldly drawn the line in the sand. “Either you love me, or you hate me, but I am the way I am. Yeah, baby. I guess.” Basically, what you’ve heard is true. If you liked the first two Austin Powers movies, you’ll like this one, and if you didn’t, blah de blah de blah… I apologize for early overuse of cliches, but Justin says I haven’t met my quota for this month. So I may as well kill two birds with one stone.

First, the good. The opening ten minutes are, bar none, the best ten minutes in the entire series. I’m sorry, I have no idea how they pulled the whole thing off, between the action sequence and the guest stars. It’s fantastic, it’s over the top, and it’s hilarious. The flashbacks to Evil/Powers’ origins are great, incredibly well-dubbed and -cast. There are some unexpected running gags that carry over that really work. Dr. Evil finally gets his “frickin’ sharks with laser beams on their heads”, which is all kinds of satisfying. Scott Evil’s attempts at securing his father’s attention continue with genuinely surprising results. There are moments here and there that perfectly pull on the strengths of the original movie. And the inclusion of Michael Caine as Austin’s father, Nigel, is a perfect touch (I loved the scene where he talks a henchman into falling to the ground — instead of having to hit him — just on the merit of his name and reputation). Too bad it wasn’t used more, but it ain’t bad.

But for every good reference to Austin’s previous adventures, there are about five bad ones. The musical numbers are getting tired. The “buckshot comedy” approach is working less and less. They’re throwing tons of jokes up for the audience, but the hit versus miss ratio is way down. And the villains… wow. Goldmember himself is inexplicably boring. He’s Dutch. DUTCH! THAT’S his villainous trait! He’s Dutch, and he eats his own skin. Great. I’ll be over here, not enjoying myself.

So here we are again, with the big cliche. If you liked the last couple, you’ll like this one. It’s the truth. There are moments of pure comic genius, but for the most part, they could have flashed the words “JOKE JOKE JOKE” across the bottom of the screen and gotten more laughs. Goldmember is better than Spy Who Shagged Me, worse than International Man of Mystery, and ultimately forgettable.

Mind you, they blow up Britney. That’s worth something. Also, Canuck Alert! To no one’s surprise, Mike Myers is Canadian. Yeah, you all knew that, but I’m contractually obligated to point this out.

Justin’s Rating: Cut! No, really, cut!

Justin’s Review: Like birthing masculine Italian sons, movie studios should know that the cardinal rule for parodies is to stop it after the first one. Every downfall associated with sequels — tired rehashing of hash browns, general laziness of the writers, Britney Spears, trying to figure out if the public is currently educated enough to still decipher Roman numerals — is magnified when it comes to sequels of spoof flicks. I mean, you’ve already exhausted all the good jokes by the end of the original installment, so all that’s left is for filmmakers to trade their integrity and birthright to a diseased hot dog vendor in exchange for the Polish sausage of cashing in.

Unfortunately, no one notified the Movie Police about the use of Austin Power’s extremely tired schtick (that’s a stick with poop jokes attached to it), and I get sensibility beat out of me with Austin Powers in Goldmember. Hey, I used to like Austin, Dr. Evil, and Scotty, but that was back when they were still spoofing James Bond films. Remember those days? When they made good jokes at the expense of spy cliches, instead of doing nonsensical prison rap numbers to the tune of Annie’s “It’s a Hard Knock Life?”

As my esteemed and well-read colleague PoolMan Esquire aptly noted, the first little chunk of Austin Powers 3 is undeniably its best. Do you deny it? Do you, you weasel-powered technocrat? I thought not. And in this Scary Movie-styled Parody of a Parody of a Real Genre, we’re given a glimpse of how good this movie could’ve been. Tom “Brace Face” Cruise, Gweneth “I Was Fat As A Baby” Paltrow, Kevin “I Cut Off Gweneth’s Head Once” Spacey, and Danny “Hobbit” DeVito all outshine the rest of the cast in their brief cameos. For shame.

By the way, have you ever had that thing happen to you where you find yourself spacing out while watching a movie because nothing interesting is happening, and it quickly becomes surreal because you think to yourself — in your spaced-out daze — that the movie is playing dumb until you start paying attention again? Yeah, that happened a lot here. There are moments of greatness in Austin Powers 3, but each are separated by approximately twelve minutes that could be better spent cleaning your toilet or explaining to my dog why guests’ heads aren’t the preferred sleeping spots. See it, don’t see it, but in either case you aren’t losing much. M-E-H, meh.