We all know how much of a stickler I am for being spoiler-free with everything and it paid off in spades for me when I saw
Austin Powers in Goldmember opening day. I avoided everything about the movie. No trailers, no print ads, nothing. So, you can imagine what a huge kick I got from watching the opening sequence that had
Tom Cruise playing
Austin Powers, Gwyneth Paltrow playing
Dixie Normous,
Kevin Spacey playing
Dr. Evil and the riotous
Danny Devito as
Mini-Me. These sight gags created one of the most raucous reactions from a single crowd I've ever been a part of. People were STILL laughing, whooping and hollering all through the opening dance number because of the surprise reveal. It was fantastic!
As before, some of the jokes are recycled from the first two films, but
Goldmember does offer a few more original and very funny jokes that delivered big time for me. The Subtitle gag was great and of course I got a huge kick out of the 'p*ssing fountain' gag where
Austin has to force himself to continually whiz in order to keep from being discovered. But even this joke pales in comparison to the even funnier p*ssing joke during
Austin's physical exam with
Mini-Austin. The shadow puppet is also priceless and the one I always laugh at the loudest.
I never noticed till now that one of those fleeing from "
Godzilla" was
Masi Oka. Granted, the last time I actually watched this movie was well before he became a name actor on
Scrubs, Heroes and
Hawaii Five-0. Adding
Michael Cain as
Austin's father was a nice touch.
I like
Goldmember for a lot of the jokes, but I think the movie as a whole is the weakest of the 3 because the entire movie felt less like a movie and more like a series gags and skits loosely held together by a "plot". Too much time is spent on new character
Goldmember at the detriment of screen time for
Dr. Evil. Definitely worth a
Rent for sure.