Summer Movies: "The Spy Who Shagged Me" by ZACK NGUYEN Saturday, July 10, 1999 Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, has almost none of the elements that made the original Austin Powers movie so much fun to watch. This should not surprise anyone who has experience with big-budget sequels, or with Hollywood's insistence on giving it to us two or three times when once was quite enough, thank you. As a direct result of leaving certain intelligent comedic references out of the second movie, "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" will make at least twice what the first movie made. This is a shame, and makes one despair for the average movie-goer. The first Austin Powers was a wonderful satire of 60's England, with groooovy music, wild sets, and illegal states of mind.

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It also spoofed the entire James Bond series, which enjoyed it's Golden Age in the 1960's. Mike Myers even managed to fit in some mild denunciation of 60's free love and drug abuse, as he finds monogamy to be quite swingin'. One memorable scene has Powers going down a checklist of rock star friends from the sixties, who, by 1997, have all perished from drug abuse or alcoholism. It was impossible to see Mike Myers leer at the camera in the first film without bursting into laughter. At least it was for me. The sets were absolutely "shagadelic." The red velvet suits and Union-Jack painted convertible was enough to make the first "Austin Powers" thoroughly enjoyable. "The Spy Who Shagged Me" throws all this away in favor of endless bathroom jokes, site gags and other cheap laughs. Satire takes a very distant second to low-brow humour, and moralizing disappears entirely. The highly amusing courtship between Powers and Vanessa (Elizabeth Hurley) is tossed away completely. The new love interest, a comely vixen named Felicity Shagwell, can't wait to get in bed with Austin Powers. This takes away a great deal of the entertainment for me, as the ensuing "courtship" really isn't one at all. Dr. Evil is less the characterature of eeeevil and more goofy. Many of the jokes from the first film are repeated in the second just in case we didn't get them the first time. This doesn't mean that the film doesn't have its moments -- Scott Evil and Frau Farbissima on the Jerry Springer show, the introduction of Mini-Me, and any mention of the name "Fat Bastard." Yet they all seem to fall flat, wedged as they are between the continuous stream of adolescent jokes. If you are the kind of person that giggles hysterically whenever someone you know goes to the bathroom, or simply cannot live a single day without telling disgusting jokes designed to horrify and sicken your coworkers, this movie is most definitely for you. See it immediately. If not, spend your time elsewhere.

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