Nerds That Geek Movie Review: ‘Austin Powers in Goldmember’

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

​I am a firm believer in the notion that a story should end in the most appropriate fashion possible. If that means it takes one movie, or book or game to bring it to a logical conclusion, so be it. Or if it takes ten, so be it. Because the biggest mistake that any story or franchise can make, is dragging out a particular tale for far longer than it needs to go on for and we’ve seen it time and time again in cinema, print and the gaming industry, wherein a particular saga has clearly exhausted all of its creativity as it churns out sequel after sequel and what’s left is a shell of what we once loved.
 
Sadly, that’s something that quite frankly happened to the Austin Powers franchise. Because after delivering two phenomenal entries in this series, the third film in the saga, Austin Powers in Goldmember simply didn’t quite wow the audience as its predecessors did and really, that’s quite a shame. Because there are some genuinely wonderful moments to be found in this film, since some of the gags work quite well and the performances are strong and much of the humor is strong as well, so perhaps the big questions to ask here are why exactly this film feels so out of place and well, tired when compared to the other two movies in the franchise?
 
As it turns out, there are several reasons as to why this movie just didn’t quite jibe with us and the first glaring issue when it comes to this film is that it really doesn’t offer up anything new for the audience. A lot of the gags we adored in the first two movies are used in excess here, and while some of said gags are chuckle worthy, they eventually lose their luster since they go on for a little bit too long here and that’s a shame really because there really was quite the opportunity to do some original stuff with Goldmember and Nigel Powers coming into the mix in this story.
 
But for me, what really doesn’t work at all, is the strange sub plot involving Austin and Doctor Evil being brothers all along. I mean, don’t get me wrong, how the script puts those pieces together is just fine, but comedy or no, that particular plot twist just feels like an outright cop out when all is said and done and a convenient way to simply wrap up the saga rather than giving the audience some kind of hilarious final showdown between Powers and Evil and if anything, this just goes to show that the franchise had indeed run out of steam and ideas and should have ended with The Spy Who Shagged Me.
 
However, despite my complaints, there are still a lot of reasons to enjoy this movie. Because Goldmember does steal the show when he arrives into the plot with his weird desire to collect dead skin and you cannot go wrong with Doctor Evil finally getting his freakin’ sharks with freakin’ laser beams attached to their heads. But, this is by far the weakest film in the trilogy and that’s a shame because it could have wrapped up in epic fashion, but alas, it is what it is and while the saga ends in off fashion, overall the trilogy is something to be admired since it did offer up some new ideas and hilarious moments and I think that’s why we give this particular entry in the series a pass, because it really is a part of something special. 

---