Mystery Men

-Universal (1999)

Summary

A less than ideal group of would-be superheroes must save their city from the clutches of an evil super villain.

My Thoughts

Does anyone else beside me remember this film? Hell, even I forgot it existed until I went through my collection the other day looking for a DVD to review. I think Mystery Men's plight is best summed up in its fade out of existence from the public consciousness. It's a shame really, but it has happened to better films before it.

Mystery Men begins in a world where superheroes exist. There are a few big names who are the true superheroes, like the city's biggest superhero, Captain Amazing. Amazing is played by a smirking Greg Kinnear who turns in an awesome performance as an egotistical superhero who’s also a corporate shill.

Not only are there big guys (we only get to see Captain Amazing. I’m assuming the other big timers are responsible for other cities), but there are a lot of second stringers with pretty useless powers or no powers at all. They each try to get a piece of the crime fighting action. The Mystery Men are such a group and consist of thee guys, Mr. Furious, The Shoveler, and The Blue Raja. They aren’t successful, but they try hard under the shadow of Captain Amazing.

When the story begins, Captain Amazing has basically worked himself out of a job. The major super villains are either dead or in prison, and the Captain is losing his endorsements because of this.  To correct this situation he gets one of his archenemies, Casanova Frankenstein released from a mental prison. Amazing’s plan doesn't work out so well when he's captured by Casonova. With the city's protector out of commission its up to the Mystery Men to save the day. Unfortunately, the three of them aren’t powerful enough to rescue him on their own, so they go about the task of recruiting more members to rescue Amazing and save the city.

I like this film. It's a cool concept and is pretty funny, but unfortunately it doesn't make it on several levels. The plot isn't the greatest, and some of the jokes fall completely flat, but there are so many jokes that do make it that it’s all worthwhile. In fact, Mystery Men is one of the most quotable films I’ve ever seen, it’s just too bad that you really can’t share the humor with a lot of other people.  

Overall the cast of super heroes is great and Mystery Men is a must see just for the character of Mr. Furious. I've always liked Ben Stiller and he's on top of his game as Furious. Mr. Furious is a hero that runs on his boundless rage, which is a cool idea, but he really can’t do anything. He just gets mad and ends up hurting himself.  The other cast members include William H. Macy as The Shoveler. The Shoveler is a family man who is good at shoveling and therefore has to use it for the good of mankind. Janeane Garofalo plays The Bowler, a superhero who uses a bowling ball inhabited by her father's skull/spirit. Hank Azaria plays The Blue Raja, an English accented utensil throwing hero. Kel Mitchell plays The Invisible Boy, a kid that can turn invisible if absolutely no one is looking. He’s a one joke character, but he’s pretty spirited. One of the best characters aside from Mr. Furious is The Sphinx, played by Wes Studi. The Sphinx’s main power is that he’s mysterious, terribly mysterious that is, and he speaks in riddles that at first sound deep, but as Mr. Furious figures out they follow a distinct pattern. The lamest character by far is The Spleen, played by Paul Reubens (famous for Pee Wee Herman and masturbating in a porno theater). Although there are a couple of clever moments with him, on the whole he's not a funny character. His "power" is farting, and most of the time fart jokes are not funny. 

Geoffrey Rush puts in a great performance as the evil Casanova Frankenstein. At times he was a little too cartoonish, but considering the weirdness of the character and his over the top antics he pulls it off fairly well.

There's a lot of junk that could have been cut out and Mystery Men wouldn't have suffered in the least. The "skunk loving" scene comes to mind as a perfect example. If you combine the bad jokes and the factors that it’s such an oddly stylized film it was made in a time that superhero flicks were not popular at all, you have a box office failure. If the film was trimmed down a bit and made around the current time when superhero films are common it might have been more accessible to a bigger audience and financially successful. Usually a parody appears AFTER there have been a lot of successful films it’s parodying.

Technically, this isn't the best looking DVD I've ever seen, but it's not the worst either. The picture quality is rather standard, and the surround mix is only okay at best.

When it comes down to it, the good far outweighs the bad. Mystery Men has a lot of great lines and hilarious scenes that are worth the time. Hell, the Mr. Furious scenes alone are worth watching the film for.

Extras

There are a few extras included in this edition of Mystery Men, but nothing really spectacular.

“Spotlight on Location” is a promotional behind the scenes that actually contains some neat stuff besides the average, you’ve got to see this movie B.S. It’s pretty entertaining seeing the talented cast goofing around on the set.

The director’s commentary is your standard commentary track. It’s got a lot of info about the making of the film for anyone who is interested and is a nice addition.

The deleted scenes are a worthwhile watch. Some of them are simply hilarious. I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t be in the film instead of lesser not as funny scenes. The best deleted scene is the one in which Mr. Furious convinces The Shoveler that he can’t quit, and recites an oath they took together when they teamed up. The oath is hilarious and I don’t know why it wasn’t included, but the film is overly long anyway.

The “Universal Soundtrack Presentation” is the rap video theme song in the long tradition of stupid rap theme songs based on a film.

“Music Highlights” is one of the oddest special features I’ve ever seen. It basically is a cue for where the soundtrack songs are played in the film. That’s right, you get to go to the scenes in the film were certain songs are played. Interesting idea, but completely useless.

One of the biggest missed opportunities is the selection “The Origin of the Mystery Men Comic Book Characters.”  It highlights the origins of the Mystery Men and explains how different they are from their film counter parts. I didn’t know anything about the comic so it was enlightening, but there are no pictures from the comics, so I had to basically imagine what the text was referring too. Perhaps they couldn’t get the rights, but reading a bunch of text is not really that fun. This could have been a really great extra, but instead it’s just a side note.

Score:

Film: 7.5

Extras: 6.5

Edition: 7.0

-Paul