Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos Coutesty of Studios The act of watching a Mike Myers project is something like being privy to 90 minutes’ worth of inside jokes between the star and himself. Whether it’s Danish sex addicts, Canadian local-news reporters, or Peter Sellers in The Party, Myers has a habit of creating characters from whatever pop-culture ephemera is tumbling around in his brain, with little care to whether or not the audience understands the reference.
The Pentaverate doubles down on that, giving the floor over to Ken, a daffy Canadian TV journalist who made a career on puff-piece human-interest stories. Ken is based on Glenn Cochrane, a real-life journalist who appears in the clip at the end of episode six. His last name, Scarborough, is borrowed from the Toronto suburb Myers grew up in. Ken’s simple, Canadian kindness is appealing, but in the idealized, perfect way that doesn’t give the character much room to grow as the show progresses.
But Goldmember barely registers in the 2002 movie that bears his name. It’s not that Myers doesn’t do his best to inhabit the character. It’s not even a terrible idea. It’s just that most of the story is dedicated to Austin’s attempts to win over his father, Nigel Powers. The rest is dedicated to various loosely connected sketches featuring Dr. Evil and Mini-Me.
Nostalgia animates his imagination: Wayne’s World is a paean to teenage obliviousness, Austin Powers is inspired by years of watching old ’60s spy movies, and Phillip and Simon are innocent children trying to make sense of the adult world. So bringing back The Gong Show in 2017 made all the sense in the world for Myers in his post–Love Guru phase.
Myers backed out of Dieter, was sued by Universal Studios and Imagine Entertainment, then sued Universal and Imagine himself before agreeing to star in the abysmal The Cat in the Hat in exchange for not having to fulfill his obligation to Dieter. It’s a shame, because Dieter is one of the only Myers characters that truly feels mean, that has an absurdist edge. The film probably would have been an ahead-of-its-time masterpiece if it was made.
Did Mike Myers die or something? Because that would be the only justification for writing a retrospective or dissertation on the psychology behind his choices. Seriously, WTF? 🤡
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