The Pentaverate

 2022, d. Tim Kirkby (Look Around You) - Netflix
created by Mike Meyers

Even by the third Austin Powers movie, Mike Meyers' sense of comedy had waned, or, if not waned, not kept up. His last invested work of comedy was the ill-advised and much derided pseudo-brownface comedy The Love Guru, and excepting a few small parts, the odd Shrek cash-in and a weird spate of recent Dr. Evil talk show appearances, Meyers' public output has been next to nil.

So The Pentaverate is a big deal, but if we were already a bit tired of his Klumps-ian penchant for playing multiple roles in the same production, what to think of a vehicle where he plays, based on the title and initial peeks, at least 5 key roles (in reality it's at least 7)?

I went into The Pentaverate very, very, very, very...very (that's 5) hesitant, bracing myself for the worst. The worst, typically, being an ageing comedic performer having lost touch with both what's funny in general, and what made them funny in the first place. (I've just reminded myself that a new Kids in the Hall sketch series is set to break very soon, and I'm similarly very, very, very, very....very [5] nervous). Thankfully, this is not the worst worst-case scenario.

The setup is the Pentaverate is a secret organization that attempts to guide the world for good, and when it cannot, it at least attempts to rectify the bad. We're introduced to them via Keegan Michael Key playing a physicist working on cold fusion. He's kidnapped by the Pentaverate, indoctrinated into their history, and ask by the four (all Meyers as a Russian oligarch, an Australian Murdoch-ish news media baron, a British Attenburg-ian thespian, and a former rock music manager) to join as their fifth member (the previous fifth [Meyers] having been recently murdered, as the investigating Maester played by Jennifer Saunders later declares). Oh also his death has been faked and if he turns them down he has to die.

Meanwhile, in low-fi Canada, local Toronto network reporter Ken Scarborough (Meyers, playing just a sooper nice guy, eh?) is fired from his longtime gig for being, basically, too nice and too boring. He has one last shot at making a compelling story, so he hits CanConCon (Canadian Conspracy Convention) and gets embroiled in the mystery of The Pentaverate, guided by a fanatical conspiracy nut from Long Island (Meyers again) whose beliefs about the Pentaverate cannot be disproven, even with evidence, which Scarborough gathers as he infiltrates the security force of the organization.

I was immediately taken with this show's style, it's weird medieval elements denoting the organization's age, the sprawling New York skyscraper whose interiors are both brutalist and retro futuristic, taking inspiration from 70's scifi things like Logan's Run and the Black Hole. It's not a cheap looking show, and in certain respects it could very well have been a mid-budget motion picture reedited and carved into 6 unevenly-sized episodes (with title sequence intros from Jeremy Irons breaking kayfabe frequently).

The music struck me instantly, and the first title sequence I recognized Orbital's classic electronica track "The Box" which seemed perfect. The duo did the soundtrack for the whole series, and it's rather incredible. Meyers, for his part, is excellent at inhabiting character and playing off himself. Perhaps he's such a perfectionist that this is really the only way he can ensure he gets things just perfect to his sensibilities. As he shows up in different prosthetics again, and again and again, I had to ask if it was the right move...wouldn't it be better if someone else played a few of those roles. By the end, I don't think so. He relishes each of these intense make-up jobs equally, and I don't know that another performer would treat any of these roles with the same care and zeal. I really respect his performances here. They're pretty great.

I didn't talk about Debi Mazar in this
post, but she's kind of incredible

Which all makes it very hard to say this isn't terribly funny. It's got some good bits, a few great bits, a few decent bits that should have been better or maybe were better until they got overplayed. An over-reliance on poop and dick jokes, and cheeky humour of the old Austin Powers sort, plus Meyer's penchant for fourth wall busting which is a 50/50 gamble whether the joke is worth breaking the reality of the film. What Powers had, at least, was a very specific type of film to parody. Here his influences are varied and not cohesive (outside of a lot of 70's genre media like The Six Million Dollar Man and The Prisoner), so he's reliant upon his own setup to build jokes off of. It isn't a terrible setup but it's also not fully congealed... there's more than a few plotholes and question marks around the Pentaverate's operation.

I admire that Meyers went into this with a message, a critical eye looking at conspiracy theorists and the question of who benefits from propagating them. There are more than a few exchanges that aren't denigrating the followers so much as asking them to quit avoiding the truth, to stop living in the fog of deception. He also has a wistful wish to return to trustworthy news, and even a plea for kindness and civility, and an end note that diversity matters (hopefully that was practiced behind the scenes). I really appreciated that the messaging doesn't get lost amidst all this silliness, nor really swing like a bludgeon. There's not really any punching down here, there is a lot of punching up... but you know what could have used a bit more punch up....?

I like this, not love, but like. I'm always a sucker for Canadiana and Meyers seems especially wistful about it lately. If there's any overt agenda here it's convincing the audience that Canadians are pretty great, (even if we talk a little funny) and maybe if we had a little more Canadianness in the world it would be a bit better.