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| Directed by Kinka Usher; Starring Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Geoffrey Rush, William H. Macy, Hank Azaria, Greg Kinnear, Claire Forlani, Lena Olin, Paul Reubens, Kel Mitchell, Eddie Izzard, Pras, Wes Studi, Tom Waits, and Rick Jay |
One of the most nonsensical and annoying films of the year, Mystery Men proves that great casting cannot save a bad film. It has a terrific cast, most of whom are graduates of independent films and all of whom having pretty distinguished careers (just look at the films of William H. Macy besides Psycho). Mystery Men’s actors do put forth a nice effort, but their characters are less than interesting enough to make an ensemble for a film.
Mystery Men is somewhat of a spoof of the whole superhero genre of both films and comic books. When Captain Amazing (Kinnear), a major metropolis’ hero and crime fighter, is taken hostage by an evil madman named Cassanova Frankenstein (Rush) and his psychiatrist turned accomplice Dr. Anabel Leek (Olin), a madcap group of superhero wannabes band together to save Captain Amazing and the city from the destruction of Frankenstein. The group is lead by Mr. Furious (Stiller), whose power is that he can get very angry. He begins to doubt the chances of the group when he meets his superhero match in The Sphinx (Studi) and his romantic match in waitress Monica (Forlani). The other founding fathers of the “Mystery Men” are the silverware throwing Blue Raja (Azaria) and garden tool expert The Shoveler (Macy). After taking in applicants, three more heroes join the group: Invisible Boy (Mitchell) who has never actually been seen doing his named ability, The Spleen (Reubens) who can take out a room via flatulence, and The Bowler (Garofalo) who can throw a bowling ball like a cannon/boomerang thanks to the skull of her father.
The film is nice to look at very often, the problem is that that can only take you so far. The art direction is terrific, much in the same vein as Blade Runner. I thought that the direction did have some nice moments, though they would often be ruined by very poor attempts at making a scene funny (if you like a camera showing the eye view of a fork as a guy sits on it, then this might be your type of film). The cast does try, but more often then should be the script is just too bad. Yes, there are some very good laughs, but then any hilarity would subside as the film would be filled with even more flat jokes. Mystery Men is appealing at times, but more of a overlong bore and an unfunny choice for good actors.
