Review of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me

Video

Picture quality is great on this disc, I didn`t notice a single problem throughout. The colours are very vibrant, courtesy of the decent transfer and sixties clothing. Even the out takes and trailers, usually the first to suffer from a quick rushed transfer, are excellent. Its great to see time spent on encoding supplementary material.

The special effects are often very funny, despite this being a comedy they haven`t skimped on them at all. The space shots are very amusing, and the time travel sequences are an excellent blend of cartoon style 3d effects and general stupidity. Some amusing use of back projection is also evident, with purposefully washed out backgrounds to give the game away.

Audio

Sound is great, the music selection is nearly always catchy, and again I have to say that despite this genre being a comedy money has clearly been spent, and little expense spared on the production.

Features

Whoopeee! Thousands and thousands of extras! Funny animated menus with a specially shot Austin Powers talking you through your options at every turn, and a hidden Doctor Evil menu with loads more stuff on top. There are DVD-ROM features too, complete with screensavers, trivia game and some funky interactive desktops if you need any distractions from work.

One of my problems with discs is when they include a music video and its not the one you wanted. Rush Hour falls into this category, but Austin Powers 2 definitely does not. Whether you liked the short snippet of Word Up from Mel B that appears fleetingly on the end credits or Madonna`s Beautiful Stranger, there are three videos here including these.

You do get a featurette, which is worth a quick plough through, although expect the usual arse kissing between actors and production staff about how wonderful each other is. The prize amongst all the extras here is the deleted scenes, all with chapter indexes.

Whilst some of what was cut from the final edit is easily justified, I really am surprised at how much good stuff was left on the floor. There are some absolutely hilarious jokes and situations just asking to be included, which may go some way to explain why I felt Austin Powers suffered from continuity problems with its humour. This is a shame, but its just great to watch the out takes presented in such a polished form.

If only the format allowed you to edit the movie the way you want it!

Conclusion

There are quite a few cameo appearances in Austin Powers, from Jerry Springer to Rebecca Romjin, and all of them are great. Kristen Johnston is particularly great as a Russian secret agent, and I`m not just saying that because you see her in lingerie, honest. The film doesn`t rely on these guest stars for its meat and potatoes however, this is purely added garnish for Myers central character.

Heather Graham is both funny and cute in her role as Felicity Shagwell, and plays a good support to Powers. Rob Lowe playing essentially a young Robert Wagner is just incredible in his impression of the older Number Two, its a shame one of the funniest out takes involving the pair of them together in bed didn`t appear in the final movie.

The real star of this film is of course Mike Myers` character, and his timing is much better and jokes far funnier than the previous film. Doctor Evil also lingers less on funny situations which dragged out in the prequel just became tiresome. MiniMe is pretty amusing, and makes many a scene better than it would otherwise have been.

But this still isn`t a classic in my book, it lacks continuity and still spends too much time on certain jokes that just don`t deserve it. I found about 1/3rd of the original hit me in the funny bone, and this one really improves on it upping the anti to 2/3rds. The other fraction is a bit of a miss, maybe the humour is too aimed at an American audience for my tastes.

A good movie, worth watching and actually improving on the sequel. This is something to be grateful for, as Waynes World 2 was far worse than its predecessor.