877. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)

Starring: Mike Myers, Heather Graham, Michael York

Director: Jay Roach

Running Time: 95 mins

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me is an American film and the sequel to Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. After Dr. Evil returns from his cryogenic freeze in space, Austin must team up with an American woman, Felicity Shagwell, and travel back to 1969 to prevent Dr. Evil from taking his mojo.

This is one of those rare comedy sequels that actually matches the original. I don’t think that the story here is as good as the first film, but I’m sure that the comedy is a lot raunchier than the first, because it basically just goes absolutely wild here, very rarely getting bogged down in any overly long romance or anything.

The fact about this is that I just couldn’t stop laughing at the mad slapstick comedy. Overall, this is a less intelligent film than the first, but it properly acknowledges how silly its whole concept is because it’s full of really stupid tangents, breaking the fourth wall and more, and that all makes for a simply stupid but massively entertaining watch.

Another impressively rare thing about this is that it adds a load of new characters to the story that actually do something and make you laugh (which is more than can be said for Goldmember). Mike Myers adds another role to the bill, Dr. Evil gets a hilarious new little sidekick, and the Bond girl (or I guess I should say ‘Powers girl’), Felicity Shagwell, is a lot of fun too.

One thing that I did prefer about the story in this film in comparison to the previous film was the fact that it doesn’t get too bogged down in the romance. Yes, it was sort of necessary in the first film, but they spend a good ten minutes with no laughs and just all romance, whereas here, that’s just one quick song, and the rest of it is just completely stupid comedy, which makes it all the more enjoyable.

The only issue with this film is the fact that its story is less interesting. Against the great comedy, I didn’t really care, but in comparison to the first film, which did really well at making a good Bond parody that was still unpredictable and exciting, there’s very little to get interested in this time round.

Overall, this gets an 8.3, because it’s a funnier, more stupid and simply insane building on the first film, and although it doesn’t do wonders with its story, it’s still a hell of a lot of fun.