“Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me”

FOUR STARS

The swinging ’60s are cryogenically preserved for our amusement in “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.”

“Shagged” is a film in the hallowed and hilarious tradition of late ’60s spy spoofs such as “The Silencers,” “In Like Flint” and “Casino Royale.” It borrows heavily from the stylized tongue-in-cheek television tradition of “The Avengers” and “The Prisoner.”

It is at once a send up and a salute to a time when good and evil were as simple as black and white and comedy could be just as simple as a sight gag.

“Shagged” takes the spoof one step further by spoofing the spoofs. It has all of the elements one might expect from the original, straightforward send-ups: gallons of sexual innuendo, high-tech gadgetry, hipster agents of the government who are cool and fiendish villains in quasi-futuristic garb spouting bon mots and inventing intricate but futile schemes to kill our hero.

“Shagged” begins where the first film left off. Mike Myers (“Wayne’s World,” “So I Married an Axe Murderer”) is Austin Powers on his honeymoon with Ms. Kensington (Elizabeth Hurley, “The House on Haunted Hill,” “EdTV”).

The two are happily shagging away when a twist of fate leaves him on his own once again — ready to put the “ger” back in “swinger.”

This leads directly into the riotously funny opening credit sequence, a tribute in and of itself to the cinematic style of the late ’60s. This scene is wall-to-wall sight gags as Powers waltzes about his hotel naked, celebrating his newly regained swinger status. His penis is always carefully hidden by one phallic symbol after another.

This is a complete redux of the same scene from the first film. But rather than being a shame-faced rip-off, it is a shameless attempt to get laughs at any cost. It works, so why fight it?

Meanwhile, Powers’ arch-nemesis, Dr. Evil has returned from his orbiting Big Boy cryogenic storage unit and comes to the attention of the Defense Department only after he makes a surprise appearance on “The Jerry Springer Show.” The topic is “My father is evil and wants to take over the world.” Dr. Evil’s son, Scott, is a guest who gets rudely surprised to find that his father is still alive. Soon a heavily-censored fight breaks out between Dr. Evil and the Grand Wizard of the Klan.

Later, back at Dr. Evil’s Seattle-based Space Needle/Starbuck’s lair, he is introduced to his clone, Mini-Me (Verne Troyer, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” “Men in Black”), an exact replica in 1/8 scale.

Dr. Evil and Mini-Me go back in time to steal Austin Powers’ mojo, the source of all his power and most of the film’s plot points. This leaves Austin no choice but to go back to 1969 in search of his mojo and Dr. Evil.

Back at his pad circa ’69, Powers meets Felicity Shagwell played by Heather Graham (“Boogie Nights,” “Lost in Space”). Shagwell is an American agent who has modeled herself on Powers. Once teamed up, the two go from one scene to the next acting out the silliest of spy flick clich‚s.

Graham is well-suited to the role of late ’60s sex kitten and her breasts get almost as much camera time as her face. One of the benefits to spoofing shameless sexual exploitation is that you get to show lots of T -n- A while doing it. While making fun of clich‚s, you can be drenched with them and only be doing what is expected. This may be Graham’s greatest performance since she was in “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.”

Myers is also in fine form in “The Spy Who Shagged Me.” There seems to be no danger of his losing his comedic edge just yet. His Dr. Evil character is especially well-developed in this film and has most of the hilarious scenes. Perhaps the funniest is a scene in which Dr. Evil takes a taste of Austin’s mojo and turns his evil lair instantly into a shag palace.

While attempting to seduce his sidekick, Frau Farbissina (Mindy Sterling, “Instant Comedy with the Groundlings,” “Idle Hands,” “Crazysitter”), he plays “Let’s Get It On” while opening a 40 of St. Vitus, takes a drink and pours some on the ground saying, “One for me and one for my homies.”

One surprise of the film is Rob Lowe, who seems to have found his niche imitating Robert Wagner as Young Number Two. This fallen star fits the bill playing straight man to Myers’ twisted sense of humor. In one scene, Dr. Evil makes Number Two cry as if the two are on a playground: “Come on, squirt me a few, punk.”

The plot is predictable but that in no way interferes with the film. Again, when you are making a mockery of clich‚s, originality just gets in the way, and no one really expected something new here anyway.

“Shagged” is a worthy sequel and a great summertime comedy full of mindless laughs. Occasionally, bits from the original are recycled with a slightly different spin and this is a bit lame. But the twists are funny enough to help the audience overlook that fact.

Mike Myers has definitely scored with “The Spy Who Shagged Me.” It has actually lived up to the trailers which so many people saw, enjoyed and predicted would be better than the film itself. Go into it with reasonable expectations, and no one gets hurt.