Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997) - 57 mistakes

Revealing: When Austin enters the bathroom at the casino, keep your eyes on the door during the scene - it opens by itself before closing.

Continuity: When Austin is unfrozen you see the two nurses remove the wires clipped to his ears, then suddenly they are back.

Revealing: During the honeymoon sequence at the end of the film, if you look at the right top of the flowers in the vase during the "flowers covering nipples" bit, you can see a bit of red duct tape covering Liz Hurley's nipple from behind the flowers.

Continuity: When Austin and Vanessa are on top of the bus, for one scene Austin's teeth are clean.

Revealing: In the scene at Alotta Fagina's penthouse, you can clearly see the side of her swimming costume as she gets in the jacuzzi - she's meant to be naked (I think).

Continuity: When Austin and Mrs. Kensington are at the Swinger's Club and the waitress gets punched in the face her hat falls off. In the next shot he/she is still wearing it.

Continuity: After Austin and Vanessa's night on the town, she falls asleep on Austin, holding a champagne glass. When the laptop computer starts beeping, the camera angle changes as we see Austin push her off him, and the champagne glass has suddenly disappeared.

Continuity: Also in the scene near the beginning when Austin is walking around naked and Vanessa is holding a magnifying glass she is concentrating very hard on watching the monitor off the screen.

Other: In the scene where Austin gets stuck in the golf cart between the walls the number of poles in the bottom left corner keeps changing and they get further and nearer apart.

Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where Austin and Vanessa swing off the slow moving dipping mechanism using dental floss, if you look in the top right corner of the screen you can see some kind of a support harness that the dental floss is connected to.

Factual error: When Austin Powers is in the casino and plays blackjack with #2, the sequence of the blackjack hand is dealt wrong.

Continuity: In the scene where Austin is about to get in the jacuzzi with Alotta Fagina his hair is messed up from taking off his shirt, but when it shows him getting in it's fixed.

Revealing: In the scene where Austin and his allies burst through the big blue door, right before "Secret Agent Man" begins playing, the door explodes, and you can clearly see that it's made out of wood, even though it's painted to look like and is meant to be metal. This mistake is even mentioned in the director's commentary on the Austin Powers DVD.

Continuity: In the scene where Vanessa gets drunk and the laptop rings, the first time it shows the laptop, there is an alarm clock behind it. First it reads about 10:30 or so. The 2nd time it is off.

Continuity: In the one scene in Dr. Evil's evil headquarters, it shows the large screen opening in front of them.  The screen shows the warhead that they're going to arm the drill with.  The table in the room is reflective, it shows the panels of the screen opening, but it does not show the image that's on the screen reflected in the table.

Continuity: In the scene with the American General talking about the Big Boy and asking a person to call the president, pack my overnight bag, etc., you can see his face blur over and jump from spot to spot.

Continuity: When the warhead is on the cart in Dr. Evil's lair, they use the same footage twice.

Visible crew/equipment: This might be widescreen-only - in the bathroom scene, as Austin is talking to Tom Arnold, the boom mike dips into the frame right as Tom says, "Whoo!"

Continuity: When Austin is working his mojo on the fembots, take note of his pile of clothes that have been carelessly tossed into the corner of the room. Whenever the shot returns to Austin dancing around, the pile of clothes seem to have changed their arrangement.

Continuity: This mistake takes place when Austin, Vanessa, and the guard are with the mutated sea bass. When Austin judo chops the tooth paste onto the guards face, the guard is wearing a helmet and half of it has toothpaste on the front. Then the camera does a close up on Austin. When it shows the guard again, he doesn't have his helmet on and half of his forehead has toothpaste instead of his helmet.

Revealing: When Patty O'Brien (the Irish assassin) fails to strangle Austin in the restroom, Austin grabs him and shoves his head in the toilet. If you look closely, right before O'Brien's head enters the toilet, the back of his hair is already wet.

Factual error: The British soldiers (quartermaster at the MOD, MPs and paras) are all wearing inaccurate uniforms and insignia.

Continuity: Towards the end of the movie Dr. Evil is talking to Austin in his evil headquarters. Dr. Evil is sitting in a chair with Mr. Biggelsworth in his arms. The scene has close ups of Dr. Evil with a sleeping cat, and broad shots of Austin and Dr. Evil, with the cat trying to get away. It keeps switching from one shot to the other.

Continuity: When Austin first encounters the fembots, just right before the lead one gasses him, and the nozzles come out, look closely at the bottom left of the screen (during the headshot of the lead one) and you'll see the nozzle is already out on her left breast.

Deliberate "mistake": Austin is supposed to be the archetypal Swinging Sixties Londoner yet he refers to his car as a Shaguar, a pun on 'Jaguar', pronouncing it 'Shag-war'. A native of this green and pleasant land would pronounce it 'Shag-u-ar', three syllables, not two, based on our pronounciation of the car manufacturers name: Jag-u-ar.

Audio problem: When Austin and Mrs. Kensington are shooting at Dr. Evil after he gets into his Cryogenic Freezing Chamber, in the last shot before it shows the Big Boy shooting off of the club, many sounds of gunfire are heard, however, both Austin and Mrs. Kensington have appeared to have stopped shooting.

Revealing: When Austin lowers himself in the jacuzzi you can see he's not naked but wearing flesh coloured swimming pants.

Continuity: At the begining, Dr. Evil is killing all the assassins that have failed. When he goes to kill 2 people on the left, there is a hat between the two. Then there is a shot of Dr. Evil, then it switches back to the assassins, and the hat is now in front of the left chair.

Continuity: When Austin gets unfrozen and is taking a shower, when he finishes he still has some of the "warn liquid goo" running down the left side of his face (his left). However, when he's about to get dried off, the goo isn't there anymore.

Revealing: In the scene where they go to defrost Austin, you can see that he is shaking inside of the huge ice cube, because he's really just doing his best to stand still.

Continuity: When Austin goes into the room where the fembots are, he enters by forcing himself through double-sliding doors, but by the time Austin is using his mojo against the fembots the door has changed to one small single door that slides upward, and is a completely different door.

Continuity: At the end, during Austin's confrontation with the FemBots, he lights them all a cigarette. In one shot the cigarettes fly into their mouths. In the next shot they are gone and they are nowhere around them. The same goes for the cigarette in Austin's mouth.

Factual error: When Mrs Kensington pulls up in the Jaguar to save Austin from the hordes of women chasing him at the start of the film, the car does not have a front number plate, which has always been illegal in the UK, even in the swinging 60's.

Continuity: Near the end when Christian Slater comes back with the orange sherbert Austin has no gun, and then in the next shot Austin has a gun but no sherbert. [This has caused a few questions recently - I've now had it confirmed that there are two versions of the film - a US, and non-US version. Christian Slater DOES appear in the non-US version in a cameo role for a couple of lines. Check out www.imdb.com if you don't believe me....]

Continuity: In the scene in the toilet, we clearly see that his pants are pulled down in one shot, but then when he's drowning the Irish guy, they are suddenly pulled up again.

Continuity: When the security guard comes back with the orange sherbet, he hands it to Austin who takes it from him. But a few seconds later, when Austin and Vanessa are escaping from the destructing lair, neither Austin or Vanessa have the sherbet with them. [Just a note regarding this scene, the international version of the film contains this scene but not the US version. I believe it is a deleted scene on the US version of the DVD.]

Factual error: When Austin and Mrs Kensington are in the Electric Psychedelic Pussycats Swingers Club, the Union Flag in the club is back to front. The cross of St Patrick, ie the diagonal cross, should be rotated slightly anti-clockwise, not clockwise, as we see it.

Factual error: The US Air Force general is always addressed as 'Commander' Gilmour. Commander is a naval rank considerably junior to general, and the stars on his shoulders show he's a general.

Factual error: While looking at the night sky, Vanessa points out 'The Big Dipper'. But the British call that constellation 'The Plough'.

Continuity: When Austin tries to leave the chamber where the fembots are, two of them swing inwards to block the door. When he's dancing, these fembots are never seen again - they're not visible behind him and they don't blow up.

Continuity: When Austin hears footsteps approaching the penthouse, he rushes into a chair in the living room. As Alotta is standing in the doorway, Austin says, "You seem surprised to see me--" Where Austin's arm is up near his face. But when the camera zooms in at, "Miss Fagina," his arm is gone.

Revealing: During the Honeymoon scene when Austin and Vanessa are both naked, Austin sits down on the couch - I think it's the computer that covers him up. But if you look closely, you can see the G-string he's wearing. It's flesh coloured and hard to see, but it's there.

Continuity: Watch the distance between Austin and Basil Exposition just as their first meeting comes to a close. It changes from far to near and back to far in the space of a couple of shots!

Continuity: At the end of the movie, when the doorbell rings on Austin and Vanessa's honeymoon, they are both naked and their bathrobes are nowhere in sight. However, a split second later he answers the door with his bathrobe on. Vanessa also seemed to put hers on in a split second too.

Continuity: There are close-ups of Burt Bacharach playing piano and singing to Austin and Vanessa on top of a "bus" as they cruise through Las Vegas. From a long shot as the vehicle travels by, it's very obvious that it's not Burt playing, but a stand-in.

Continuity: At the end when they are trying to stop the drill from going into the earth, Austin runs into the room and starts firing his gun. Each time he fires the gun there is a flash. If you watch, you'll see he fires 3 times, but there are only 2 flashes.

Factual error: The 1960s London policeman at the beginning is carrying a baton on his belt. British police officers didn't start carrying batons until the 1990s. Before that they only carried short truncheons in concealed pockets.

Continuity: When the Vulcan drill is shown being rotated, first of all, it's being rotated in the wrong direction - in the direction that would make the drill face upward.  Of course they could be planning to make a 360, but why?  Also, if you look closely at the people below and around the drill, you'll notice that shot is in accelerated pace - everyone is moving really fast, like in old silent films. The guys in front of the drill are looking back and forth from their pads and the drill extremely fast. I guess it was done to show the drill rotation nicer.

Continuity: When Austin and Vanessa are flying over to the states on the cool plane, there is a scene where Vanessa and Austin are talking, if you concentrate on Vanessa she has her glasses on, then in the next scene they are off, then they are back on again, how can she do this this in the space of seconds?

Revealing: Watch the people who fall back into the fire, courtesy of Dr. Evil. As they fall back, watch their feet - they roll off to either the left or the right.

Continuity: When Austin and Vanessa are riding the bus down the Vegas strip, the bus changes directions on the strip between shots.

Continuity: It's after Austin and Vanessa escape the tank with the evil attack fish. They're driving away on a golf cart-type thing and Austin sends Vanessa off. He's trying to turn the golf cart around, and he keeps getting stuck, banging into the walls. At first, it's the same cart they'd been riding in. Then they cut away to another scene... when they come back to Austin, he's got the cart wedged between two walls... but it's a totally different cart. Much, much longer. (The other one was shorter and wouldn't have reached both walls at the same time!)

Factual error: In the beginning of the movie where Austin is leading the band around the corner, the Snare Drummer is using a snare drum with a "free floating tension system" (the vertical rods on the shell). Free Floating snare systems weren't developed until the late 1980's, yet they're in 1960's London. Also, the band has a quint (5 toms) drum player. In the 60's drummers were only using 1 or 2 marching toms at a time, quints didn't become popular until the 90's.

Continuity: In the bachelors' party, when the man takes the call his beer is a quarter facing the camera and when he comes back it's all the way facing the camera.

Factual error: The rifles that the Paras are holding are SLR rifles, which were ditched by the British Army in the late 1980's for the SA-80 rifle.

Continuity: When Austin confronts the fembots, he counts them and brings up 8 cigarettes.He then lights them. In the next scene, it has a wider shot of Austin, and it looks like about 30 cigarettes are in his mouth.Then, it drastically reduces to 3, then 1.

Factual error: Britain has a Ministry of Defence, not a Ministry of Defense.