Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

Mike Myers built the character for Ming Tea, a mock sixties band formed with Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs, before any film existed. The idea arrived when Burt Bacharach’s The Look of Love came on the car radio; his father, who died in 1991, had given him Bond, Peter Sellers and British comedy. The best built joke in Jay Roach’s film is not parody but accounting. Dr. Evil is frozen in 1967, revived in 1997, and demands 100 billion dollars from the United Nations, while in his absence his lieutenant Number Two has turned Virtucon, the empire’s legitimate front, into a multibillion dollar corporation. The villain’s scheme is obsolete before it starts, and that is how the film works the gap between two decades. Jim Carrey was wanted for Dr. Evil but was tied up with Liar Liar, so Myers played him too. Myers estimates 30 to 40 per cent was improvised, so scenes run past the joke. It opened second with 9.5 million dollars and reached 67.7 million worldwide; cassette made it a phenomenon, the best selling video in America in 1998, and the sequels followed. A good fit if the out of date ransom figure is the punchline you want. Not for viewers who will bristle at the sixties attitude to women being both target and pleasure.