when a someone journeys to the theater to see a comedy , he always risks having to sit through inanity such as what we recently saw in films like edtv and office space .
it really is too bad that comedies are so hit-
and - miss , because when a moviegoer goes in a theater expecting to be amused , it really is a shame when the alleged comedy fails to deliver .
but weep not , dear readers , because the latest comedy out of the hollywood movie mill is nothing less than a sure bet .
austin powers :
the spy who shagged me is one of the funniest things
i 've had the pleasure to see in a long time ; a completely looney , delightful parody of the often pretentious james bond flicks .
if all comedies ( or even half ; or - - what am i saying ?
-- even a fifth of them ) could be this consistently hysterical
, i would take up residence at my local multiplex .
even more to this movie 's credit is the fact that it is a sequel to the 1997 sleeper / cult hit austin powers :
international man of mystery .
the original came out of nowhere ; it was a low - budget , eccentric movie that many expected to flop like a leslie nielsen parody .
all of a sudden it was being quoted by teenagers all over america .
ironically , powers ' " yeeeeah baby , yeah !
" has almost become an icon of the late 90s .
thus another installment was inevitable , but it 's also undoubtedly welcome .
the spy who shagged me is one of the most unrestrained , over- the - top comedies i have ever seen in my entire life .
it brings back most of the characters from its predecessor ( even if only briefly ) and adds new ones .
austin powers ( mike myers ) , a swinging hipster from the 60s transported into the 90s has to go back to his own time to get back his mojo
( oh , you 'll figure it out ) , which dr .
evil
( meyers again ) has stolen .
he enlists the help of a gorgeous secret agent felicity shagwell ( now that his prior sidekick vanessa has been properly disposed of in a hilarious opening sequence ) , played without much distinguishable gusto by heather graham and together they go back to the 60s to defeat dr .
evil yet again .
surprisingly , the real star is dr .
evil rather than austin .
he gets most of the screen time because he was so popular in the first movie .
perhaps this is true because he is portrayed and written so affectionately .
instead of being the scheming , villainous mad scientist we might expect from a character like this he is a bumbling , often sweet mad scientist wannabe .
the spy who shagged me has much of the same stuff we saw in the original , but that 's okay by me because the original left us wanting more .
by the time that one was over we have n't had
nearly our share of shag jokes , crude puns and powers ' antics and this sequel satisfies our appetites .
even by its conclusions , i 'm still not sure i 've had my fill of bits like
" do you smoke after sex ? "
" i do n't know , baby , i never looked .
"
this may seem awfully immature of me , but understand that the austin powers series , unlike most of the crap hollywood feeds us these days , is genuinely funny .
i do n't know if i 've ever laughed harder at any movie than i did during the jerry springer send up or the indubitably hilarious " just the two of us " rendition by dr .
evil and his new miniature clone named " mini - me " .
i do n't have any pretensions that this is particularly smart social satire or anything of the sort .
indeed there is little beyond the joy a viewer feels when he sees something that is able to entertain him as much as this movie did .
but as far as i 'm concerned , that is enough . ?
1999 eugene novikov & # 137 ;
one of the funniest things satisfies our appetites nothing less than a sure bet genuinely funny consistently hysterical weep not delightful