Austin Powers in Goldmember

In for a penny in for a pound as they say. It would have seemed odd not to watch the third in the series so here we are.

Austin Powers in Goldmember is the point at which the series completely abandons what may seem like a story. There’s more time travel, villains and sex jokes.

There are lots of cameos to distract you from this though! Within the first five minutes we see Tom Cruise, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito, Steven Spielberg and Britney Spears. It was so fun in 2002, now it’s… less entertaining.

The cast list got an upgrade too, Beyoncé and Michael Caine join Mike Myers in the battle against Dr. Evil. They are talented enough but they aren’t given much to do. Caine is a good spy-father with his Ipcress File background though and Beyoncé seems to nail the tone of 70s Blaxploitation characters. She’s so young it’s hard to believe she even knows what she’s doing but whatever, it seems to work.

The series still has its original sense of humour, and Roach finds funny ways to re-hash old jokes.

There’s also been somewhat of a budget increase, also used to hilarious effect (I like the Dr. Evil shaped submarine).

This film is as quotable as the others, but this time we simply can’t ignore that the plot is a sprawling mess. It’s a film that’s been written around jokes and it quickly gets tiresome.

All in all it’s a nice 90 minute romp but not one I’m going to come back to in a hurry. Also, to complete the series of pervy observations about the leading ladies, Beyoncé is ssssmokin’. Wait no that’s Ace Ventura.