# Mystery Men (1999)

### reviewed by
Tim Chandler

    Mystery Men

    Rating:  2 out of 4

    The Info

Directed by: Kinka Usher Written by: Neil Cuthbert (comic by Bob Burden) Starring: Hank Azaria, Janeane Garofalo, William H. Macy, Kel Mitchell, Paul Reubens, Ben Stiller, Wes Studi, Greg Kinnear, Geoffrey Rush, Tom Waits Produced by: Lawrence Gordon, Lloyd Levin, Mike Richardson

    The Basic Plot

A group of wannabe superheroes have to save Champion City's one true hero, Captain Amazing, from the clutches of the evil Casanova Frankenstein.

    The Review

Superheroes have had an easy ride in motion pictures. While other popular film topics such as the Mafia (Analyze This) and the military (Hot Shots) have been spoofed to death, relatively few parodies have been made about superheroes; Meteor Man immediately comes to mind. The Superman series, while light, always kept Supe himself serious. Within this year of parodies and dark, biting comedies, you would think that the time for Mystery Men had come. Unfortunately it has such a large cast that there isn't enough screen time available for any of them to shine, making this an uneven film with lots of unused potential.

Mr. Furious (Stiller) leads his comrades The Shoveller (Macy) and The Blue Raja (Azaria) in a constant fight against crime. The problem is that they have no real superpowers. Mr. Furious just gets mad, The Shoveller swings a shovel and The Blue Raja, most pathetically of all, throws forks. They are unnoticed and unneeded in Champion City, where Captain Amazing (Kinnear) routinely keeps the streets clean of crime. It's only when the Capt. gets kidnapped by the evil Casanova Frankenstein (Rush) that they become the city's saviours. To save him, they enlist the help of The Bowler (Garofalo), who throws a magical bowling ball which has her father's skull embedded in it, The Spleen (Reubens), a disgusting man whose projectile flatulence is his weapon, The Sphinx (Studi), who can occasionally break guns with his mind but mostly stands around saying lame affirmations ("You must control your rage, before your rage controls you."), and finally Invisible Boy (Mitchell) who is only invisible when no one is looking. With the added bonus of some strange non lethal weapons by inventor Dr. Heller (Waits), they battle Casanova Frankenstein and his henchmen, and in the end become a team.

Mystery Men tries to do to Superman what Austin Powers does to James Bond. The film looks at the silliness that traditionally accompanies superhero stories and lampoons it. A discussion about whether Captain Amazing is really a billionaire named Lance hinges on the fact that Lance wears glasses while Captain Amazing doesn't. When Mr. Furious mentions that Lance simply takes them off, The Shoveller counters "but then he wouldn't be able to see!" Dr. Heller's gadgets could easily be lamer replicas of the plethora of things on Batman's utility belt. With a combination of Stiller, Garofalo and Reubens, you can expect a lot of laughs. Each provides many chuckles, but the more straight-laced cast members tend to hinder them a bit. A lot of the humour is too intellectual, not really making you laugh, but making you nod thinking "that's quite clever". A good example would be when The Blue Raja explains the meaning of his name to someone; he goes on about how the British government ran India way back when, with a government called the Raj, and since he has a British accent, and was born in India, voila, he is The Blue Raja. The film contains too much of this style of humour; when Mr. Furious says "I'm gonna go Pompeii on your butt" a large portion of the audience really doesn't get it. It's a bit like a Dennis Miller comedy monologue, you've got to think to appreciate it.

The large cast hinders things a bit, with some of the wannabe superheroes (Invisible Boy) getting no good material at all. Tom Waits is given nothing funny to do as Dr. Heller. He just sits around saying things like "my god, that's a positronic modulating psychoblaster!" Claire Forlani is thrown in as a pathetically unneeded love interest for Mr. Furious. I would have liked to see more screen time go to Casanova Frankenstein. Geoffrey Rush is hilarious as the film's disco dancing/ German accented baddie. He naturally plans to destroy the entire city with a dastardly deed, in this case some kind of giant laser weapon. He truly captures the film's irreverent tone and provides some of the best laughs, its only too bad that his accent is at times indecipherable. To writer Neil Cuthbert's credit, there is one hilarious and unexpected plot twist in the film, and a couple scenes that are magical. When the superheroes encounter Casanova in his limo and proceed to enjoy a brief, minor victory, the laughs were so constant that my stomach hurt.

This is a good way to kill a couple bucks on cheap night, but many people who pay full price will consider their money wasted. I have a feeling that Mystery Men will become a hit on video, becoming funnier with each repeated viewing. Hopefully there will be a sequel, as the potential of this cast and concept is huge.

    Tim Chandler

check out more reviews at The Bottom Line http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Heights/8000/index.html

    or e-mail me at timbit@canada.com

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