Austin Powers Bond Parody: What the Films Send Up

Each film gives Dr. Evil a new world threatening scheme, and the scale keeps shifting while the structure stays the same. In the first film, Austin learns about Project Vulcan, a plan to set off a nuclear warhead in the Earth's core. In The Spy Who Shagged Me, Dr. Evil travels back to 1969 and steals Austin's mojo, the source of his charm and drive, with a base on the Moon as the trail's end.

In Goldmember, he plans to join forces with Goldmember, a Dutch villain obsessed with gold, in 1975 so they can steer a meteor into Earth with a tractor beam. Austin and Doug (Dr. Evil's real name, as Nigel reveals) end up reversing the beam's polarity, which destroys the meteor. The pattern is the Bond one: a plan that sounds absurd on paper and a hero who has to stop it in the last reel.

A Bond villain rarely works alone, and the Austin Powers films give Dr. Evil a full staff to match. Number Two (Robert Wagner) runs Virtucon as a legitimate corporation, and Alotta Fagina (Fabiana Udenio) is Number Two's secretary. In Las Vegas, Austin and Vanessa meet Number Two and Alotta while posing as a married couple.

The henchman Random Task then captures Austin and Vanessa at Virtucon headquarters, and the United Nations agrees to pay the ransom while the pair escape. Random Task returns on their honeymoon, only to be subdued. The humor is that a villain's organization needs offices, secretaries and an executive team, which the films treat with the same care as the weapons. Number Two and Frau Farbissina (Mindy Sterling) are both credited in all three films.

The self destructing lair and the rocket getaway are the Bond set piece the first film copies most closely: the countdown starts, the villain slips away, and the hero runs. Dr. Evil triggers the self destruct and flees in a rocket, and Austin and Vanessa get out before the lair blows up. Three months later they marry, and Dr. Evil swears revenge from a cryogenic chamber aboard his rocket.

The second film repeats the beat on purpose. Dr. Evil starts the Moon base's self destruct countdown and escapes, tossing Austin's mojo into the air as he goes. In my opinion, the parody works because the sequel reuses the countdown and getaway instead of inventing a new finale. A villain who always escapes is a genre rule, and the films treat that rule as the joke.

The series also parodies the gadget and henchman side of a Bond adventure, using fembots and a miniature clone as the oddest examples. In the first film, Austin beats Dr. Evil's fembots, and in The Spy Who Shagged Me he discovers that his new wife Vanessa is a fembot built by Dr. Evil, and she self destructs. It is the series' way of playing with the idea that a spy never knows who to trust.

Mini-Me, played by Verne Troyer, is a miniature clone of Dr. Evil that the villain acquires in the second film. Austin beats Mini-Me at the Moon base, but in Goldmember Mini-Me switches sides and helps Austin sneak onto Dr. Evil's submarine. The mini me austin powers page covers the character's arc, and the fat bastard austin powers page covers another of Myers's characters, a late attempt on Austin's life in the second film.

Bond has a new partner in nearly every film, and the sequels copy that habit while sending Austin back through the decades. In The Spy Who Shagged Me, Austin follows Dr. Evil to 1969 and works with CIA agent Felicity Shagwell. When Dr. Evil traps her in a chamber filling with poison gas, Austin uses the time machine to jump ten minutes back, which lets him save her and stop the plan.

In Goldmember, Austin goes to 1975 to look for his kidnapped father and meets Foxxy Cleopatra (Beyoncé), a disco era agent and a former flame. The chase later moves to Tokyo, where the command unit for the tractor beam is being moved. Learn more on the felicity shagwell and foxxy cleopatra pages, and see the vanessa kensington page for the first film's partner.

The sequel titles are the most direct Bond reference in the series, because each one twists the way Bond films are named. The Spy Who Shagged Me is a parody of a Bond film title. Goldmember drew an objection from MGM and Danjaq in early 2002, as UPI reported, before the film opened in the US on July 26, 2002.

The joke goes one step further at the end of Goldmember. After Goldmember is arrested, the story is shown being adapted into a film within the film called Austinpussy, and Austin and Foxxy kiss after a screening of it. Scott, now bald, vows revenge, and Mini-Me is shown talking with Britney Spears during the end credits. No separate post credit scene has been verified. See austin powers goldmember and the spy who shagged me for the full film pages, and austin powers cameos for the guest appearances.

In my opinion, the frozen villain in the first film is the best Bond joke in the series, and I judge each target by how well the film turns a Bond habit into something specific rather than a general wink. Dr. Evil wakes up in 1997 to find that his own plans have already happened and that Number Two has built a legitimate business, which is a sharper joke about the genre than any single gadget.

Second, I would put the title gags, because Austinpussy closes Goldmember by turning the entire plot into a movie within the movie. Third comes the lair and rocket escape, which it could be argued is funnier on repeat in the second film than on its first use. Fourth is the time travel and partner structure, which gives each sequel a fresh setting and a new ally, with Felicity in 1969 and Foxxy in 1975. Last, the fembots and Mini-Me are more about the series' own silliness than about Bond, although Mini-Me's change of sides in Goldmember pays off a running thread.

If you want one film to see the parody at its sharpest, I would start with International Man of Mystery, and the where to watch austin powers page lists the services. For the full film ranking, see austin powers movies ranked.