Five Star Friday

In my first two FSFs I selected a pair of movies released in the years around 1980, so this week I'll try something of a more recent vintage (though still a dozen years old).  I'll also go with a genre I haven't tackled yet: comedy.  Now comedy, more than any other genre, is subject to individual taste: what may be hilarious to you might bore me to death, and vice versa.  That being said, however, few are the people that can't find something to laugh about or a line to quote in today's selection. Yeah baby!

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

There is no doubt in my mind that the first Austin Powers movie was the best comedy of the 1990's, and much of the credit has to go to its writer and star, Mike Myers. In writing the film, Myers mined a number of fertile areas for comedy gold, such as mockery of the British, time-travel and secret agent film spoofing, which allowed him to switch the subject matter of his jokes from moment to moment and keep them from getting stale.  Along similar lines, Myers didn't limit himself to a single brand of humor.  If, like me, you enjoy absurdist humor, its hard to beat Austin Powers. Exhibit A: The opening musical number.  I still laugh out loud when Myers as Powers, running from a crowd of fans, disappears around a street corner (where a Beefeater stands for some unknown reason) and then emerges moments later at the head of a marching band.

Myers didn't just limit himself to this comedic style, however.  He also relied to a varying extent on scat humor, pop culture and sports references (who can tell me how many characters were named after Toronto Maple Leaf players?), clever word-play and a myriad of other styles for laughs.  As a result, even when a joke falls flat, the next one comes so fast and tends to be so different, that you're too busy laughing at the new joke to remember the last.

Of course it wasn't just the jokes that made the movie, but the characters as well. Myers, in creating the people that would populate his world, gave birth to a number of memorable players, led by Austin Powers, himself, and Dr. Evil. They were the perfect conduits for Myers comedy, and while they were, at times, the jokes themselves, Myers didn't just rely on their mere presence for  laughs (something he did to a much greater extent in the film's sequels, to their detriment). 

Finally, Austin Powers obeyed my first rule of theatrical comedy: Don't run longer than about 90 minutes. Generally speaking, I've found that, no matter how funny you are as a comedy writer, by the ninety minute mark you're running out of new ideas and rehashing earlier jokes.  While those gags can still be funny, they tend to be weaker than those presented earlier.  As a result, momentum slows and its better to just get out while you're ahead.

In short, if you just want to lose yourself in some mindless, ridiculous fun and laughter, you can't go wrong with Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.

Comments

[Allison]

Good movie, but it's not the best comedy of the nineties. Why? It's not even the best Mike Myers comedy of the nineties. I'll take SO I Married An Axe Murderer over Austin Powers any day.

Evidence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPMS6tGOACo

[Isangeles]

There's no question that the scenes in "Axe Murderer" with Myers playing his father are top notch and rival or surpass most (though not all)of the moments in "Austin Powers", but the remaining parts of "Axe" simply aren't as strong. There are a number of long stretches in "Axe" that muster, at best, chuckles. But as I said, comedy is very subjective.