Clint Howard

The film's hijinks largely follow your typical school's-out-for-summer comedy. There's hazing, there's rebellion, there's sex, there's quirky supporting characters (including Clint Howard, who has an "office" situated in a bathroom stall), and there's loud music. But everything's just a bit off with Rock 'n' Roll High School, starting with its star, Soles, who at 29 years old was playing what had to be the oldest senior on record. Soles, who would later become known best (arguably) for playing one of the military police officers in Stripes, is believable as a Ramones fan, though her haircut needs some attention if she wants to be a serious punk rocker.

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Having now seen "Little Nicky," in which Adam Sandler plays the retarded son of Satan, I have formulated a hypothesis I'm calling the Sandler Theory of Exponentially Obnoxious Returns. It goes something like this:

Adam Sandler goes out of his way to make each gimmick character he plays ("Billy Madison," "Happy Gilmore") more grating than the last, just to see how far he can push it before his easily amused fan base will turn on him.

His most detestable character to date had been "The Waterboy," but that Southern-fried dope was mister congeniality compared to Nicky, the little devil that couldn't. Sandler spends this entire movie with his face screwed up in a hit-by-a-shovel grimace and speaking in a silly, raspy voice like a little kid pretending to be sick so he can stay home from school. There's no joke here. It's just Sandler's version of stretching as an actor.

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It's a shame Mike Myers didn't invent Austin Powers during his "SaturdayNight Live" tenure. The occasionally funny sketch bits he stringsweakly together with about six minutes of plot in his "Austin Powers"James Bond spoofs might have played well as short gags in a recurring "SNL"routine.

Imagine, if you will, a skit in which Dr. Evil (Myers'mock-Blofeld) goes on "Jerry Springer" to confront his disgruntledson, who (god forbid!) has no ambition to take over the world. Or an episodehosted by the unbelievably beautiful yet seemingly accessible Heather Graham,in which she dons Urusla Andress' bikini from "Dr. No" and ultra-tossablehair extensions to play a CIA sexpot named Felicity Shagwell opposite Myers'ribald, randy, chest toupee- and cravat-wearing super-spy.

Continue reading: Austin Powers: The Shagged Me Review

The cameo-driven, "Mission: Impossible 2"-spoofing, movie-within-a-movie, pre-title sequence of "Austin Powers in Goldmember" is the funniest five minutes to date in this spy comedy franchise. Then Mike Myers shows up and ruins everything.

Still trapped in a skit-comedy frame of mind all these years after leaving "Saturday Night Live," his short attention span has made the "Austin Powers" movies little more than a string of brief, loosely-related set pieces which are often 98 percent setup and 2 percent punch line.

Myers goes miles out of his way to make a reference to the 1983 song "Mr. Roboto" by the band Styx, for example. Then he spends nebulously unfunny gaps between such gags to make fleeting mentions of the plot, which in this case concerns Dr. Evil -- Myers cueball goofball homage to James Bond's maniacal bald nemesis Blofeld -- teaming up with an scabby Dutch roller-disco owner named Goldmember whom Evil has transported from the 1970s.

Continue reading: Austin Powers In Goldmember Review