Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)

I think Mike Myers needs to get out more. Granted, the first film was genius. The second film was pretty funny too, but in that film was born the tendency towards repetition and sloth that torpedoes this third installment. The humor is self-referential to the point where any joke that doesn't originate from some previous joke in the Austinverse should be judged an anomaly. And that's a shame, because the only bits that really work (besides the brilliant opening montage) are the bits that have as little as possible to do with the previous two films. (Nigel and Austin's regression into untranslatable Brit-slang patois is a highlight.) I'll admit, I laughed. I laughed fairly often. But my laughter faded the longer the film stretched, for I saw the truth -- Myers has bought his own hype. He's turned his biggest success into an ouroboros, and he's gonna choke trying to swallow himself. (Okay, that's way too prententious, especially for this film.)

Grade: C+