Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me *** (1999, Mike Myers, Heather Graham, Michael York, Rob Lowe, Robert Wagner, Seth Green, Verne Troyer) – Classic Movie Review 492

Director Jay Roach’s 1999 pretty amusing first sequel comedy to Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997) brings Mike Meyers back as Austin Powers, the ultimate London swinger and fashion photographer by day and consummate British gentleman spy by night, again matching wits with his arch nemesis Dr Evil.

The tireless Myers racks up the silly, smutty laughs in both roles, and in one other role this time – Fat Bastard, the revolting, dribbling 40-stone Scotsman, a belching, farting man-mountain built of layers of fat who none the less thinks he’s sexy.

It is a shame that the gorgeous Liz Hurley (as Mrs Vanessa Kensington-Powers) gets bumped off in the opening moments, but that does leave the space open for lovely Heather Graham to make a perfect Bond girl this time, as CIA agent Felicity Shagwell.

The guest stars include Woody Harrelson, Tim Robbins, Willie Nelson, Will Ferrell, Jerry Springer, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello, but none of them helps that much, and Michael York is pretty feeble as the Brit spy boss, Basil Exposition.

But Rob Lowe has fun as Young Number Two, the three decades younger self of Dr Evil’s second-in-command Number Two (Robert Wagner) in the Sixties, Seth Green is again a hit as Scott Evil, Dr Evil’s grungy son, and Verne Troyer is super as Mini-Me, a perfect miniature clone of Dr Evil, one-eighth in size, though he cannot talk and Dr Evil treats him like a pet or baby.

Also in the cast are Mindy Sterling, Gia Carides, Oliver Muirhead, George Cheung, Kevin Cooney, Clint Howard, Charles Napier, Kristen Johnson, and Fred Willard.

It is just a rehash of part one in reverse, and not quite as funny this time, but, perhaps astonishingly, it was an even bigger hit than before.

It took seven hours of special make-up work to transform Myers into Fat Bastard. Graham said about Myers: ‘I think some other presence took over him when he was Fat Bastard. The next day he was always like “I’m sorry, please don’t hate me!”‘

The trilogy concludes with the second sequel Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002).

Verne Troyer (1969–2018).

Sadly, Mini-Me is gone. RIP the 2ft 8in Verne Troyer, who died at the age of only 49 on 21 April 2018.

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