Austin Powers in Goldmember
dir. Jay Roach
New Line Cinema

It was unnerving to be a (somewhat) serious filmgoer sitting among a bunch first-nighters at the latest Austin Powers flick. Here were people audibly excited to see coming attractions for the latest Jackie Chan film, actually erupting into applause for the trailer to Friday After Next (and chortling loudly at a gag involving the punching of one's mother).

But when the feature presentation began, that capacity crowd was as united as evangelical zealots during Sunday service. Canadian comic genius Mike Myers is the United Nations of comedy, bringing disparate sectors of the world together not merely in peaceful harmony, but in gut-busting laughter.

Hardly surprising that Goldmember soared to the top of the box-office charts in its first weekend, taking in $71.5 million. By attracting audiences from the lowbrow to the high, the Austin Powers series is that rare movie that almost anyone can laugh at, regardless of IQ level or comedic taste. It's the sort of thing TV used to do weekly before the proliferation of cable networks splintered the audience: connect people from different realms to laugh at the antics of "I Love Lucy" and "All in the Family," something to which only "The Simpsons" can lay claim today.

You need look no further than Dr. Evil's prison music video — a parody of Jay-Z's "Hard Knock Life," which samples "Annie" show tune "A Hard Knock Life" — for a prime example of Goldmember's widespread appeal. It has something that hip-hop concertgoers and musical-theater devotees can find equally amusing. Where else can you turn for such divergent pop culture references, such smart but silly humor? Well, OK, "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," but still.

Goldmember overflows with enough piss, poop and penis jokes to make South Park look like the Smurfs. But the spin Myers puts on them is so clever and keenly observant that audience members who would prefer to define their taste as sophisticated don't have to feel (too) guilty about straining an abdomen muscle laughing.

Let's face it — no matter how highly evolved your aesthetic sensibilities become, no matter how much we might value astute verbal wordplay, it's really hard to top a finely executed, gross-out piece of physical comedy. They ooze from every orifice in Goldmember, such as when Fat Bastard faces rectal-control troubles after a sumo-wrestling match (even if we don't care to admit it, we've all heard ourselves make similar noises at one time or another), or when Austin has to subject his own member to extended liquid release to avoid being nabbed, accompanied by Myers' deliciously conceived and executed facial contortions.

Myers (with director Jay Roach) succeeds in charming an extensive audience in part because he has no fear of coming across politically incorrect — political correctness being another great bastion of laughs that no one is above or beneath. The appearance and popularity of little person Verne Troyer as Dr. Evil's diminutive clone, Mini-Me, in the last movie attests to that.

There's more of that in the current film, when Austin encounters a pair of unusually named Japanese twins, while another character's facial mole becomes a tasteless but thoroughly amusing recurring joke. The former "Saturday Night Live" star manages to bring such a zany youthful enthusiasm to his work — and making these movies seems to be as much play for him as it is work — that anything that has the potential to offend seems adorable instead. Imagine being offended by a 5-year-old child who innocuously made a crude crack.

And there are just enough in-jokes for the erudite set to recognize its intellectual privilege. The naming of love interest Foxxy Cleopatra (Beyoncé Knowles) after long-forgotten '70s blaxploitation films, for example, or the way the closing tune, "What's It All About, Austin?" riffs on a song from Alfie, the '60s movie that brought Goldmember costar Michael Caine to prominence. Of course, if you miss these jokes, no harm done. They'll soar so quickly over your head you won't even notice their flight.

Fortunately, you'll be so bleary-eyed from laughter by the time the lights go up that you won't notice the Adam Sandler/Rob Schneider fans with whom you were in solidarity for the last 90 minutes. Makes you wonder if Myers could do anything with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

— Diane Snyder (dianelsnyder at aol dot com)