Anyway, it appears AP2 will be big at the box office and should destroy the original's final domestic gross. AP2 is a much bigger movie than the original in terms of characters, sets, jokes, you name it. It is easy to see that the budget for this movie is twice that of the first one. The reason why this one isn't as good as the first one is the things I just described. There is too much every second of the film. It appears that Mike Myers and director Jay Roach tried to get every single joke (there are about 1,000) to work. The reality is that some of them just flat out miss. In the first one, almost all the jokes click. This film is funny, don't get me wrong, but they may have over did it in the joke department. Nevertheless, that is a minor, minor flaw. Hey, I had to find something wrong with it.

Austin Powers dominated, and I mean dominated, the first film. Not so in this one. This is Dr. Evil's movie, plain and simple. He gets the best lines, jokes, and scenes. The movie revolves around him. It seemed in the first that he was just there so Austin could have someone to catch. The roles are reversed, sort of, in this one. Austin is now the sideshow and Dr. Evil is the main event. He doesn't disappoint. Evil is hilarious. Almost as hilarious is his tiny clone named Mini-Me. The guy says nothing in the movie, but his movements are 100% that of Evil's. You have to see him to appreciate his comedy.

Another character thrown in the fire is Fat Bastard, a 700 lb. Scottish man who loves to eat�babies. Die hards will notice the accent from Myers much like the one he used in SO I MARRIED AN AXE MURDERER. Fat has some funny lines, but he's mainly here to gross us out, and he definitely does. Not only is he involved in bathroom humor, but he also appears in a very nasty scene with Felicity Shagwell (Heather Graham), who has about as much to do with this movie as Elizabeth Hurley in the first.

The simple plot (Dr. Evil goes to 1967 and steals Austin's mojo, then Austin has to go back to '67 and get it back, etc.) is just a formality. It's there so our 2 super characters can entertain us. The script for AUSTIN POWERS won't win any awards, but it is far sharper than the script for this movie. It was a simpler movie that was easier to digest. It moved at a slower pace, but that was good. It gave you a chance to get the jokes. It's actually a better movie if you view it more than once, and I'm sure this will be the same for AP2.