Review of Mystery Men (1999) by Adam R — 27 Dec 2017

I'm a huge fan of comic book writer/artist Bob Burden. The Flaming Carrot by Burden remains my favorite comic of all-time. The Mystery Men was a spinoff series from The Flaming Carrot, about a league of second tier super heroes of which The Carrot was a member.

The story concept of wannabe superheroes and villains is ripe for comedy, since self-serious comic book movies are ripe for satire, but what ends up on screen here sadly is not all that funny or biting.

The humor of the comic books were decidedly absurdist and wildly funny if you appreciate that sense of humor, but the humor of the film is much more conventional and revolves more around silly super powers, purposefully corny dialogue, and fart jokes.

The film is only made watchable by virtue of it's stellar cast (William H. Macy as The Shoveler, Hank Azaria as Blue Raja, Janeane Garofalo as The Bowler, Paul Reubens as The Spleen Ben Stiller as Mr.

Furious, Wes Studi as The Sphinx, Geoffrey Rush as Casanova Frankenstein, Lena Olin as Dr. Anabel Leek, Eddie Izzard as Tony P, Artie Lange as Big Red, Claire Forlani as Monica, Tom Waits as Doc Heller, Louise Lasser as Violet, Ricky Jay as Vic Weems, Dane Cook as The Waffler, Doug Jones as Pencilhead, Dana Gould as Squeegeeman).

Greg Kinnear also appears in the film as the one top tier superhero, Captain Amazing, who when he is captured by villains, the Mystery Men have to step up to save him and Champion City. The film also includes odd cameos and bit parts by Michael Bay, Mark Mothersbaugh, Riki Rachtman, CeeLo Green, Jody Watley,, Doug Jones, and Dana Gould.

The film was (over) directed by commercial director Kinka Usher, who has since directed no other feature films, but I think a majority of the film's failure lies with the script by Neil Cuthbert, who's other writing credits include the notable Eddie Murphy bomb, "The Adventures of Pluto Nash.

" According to IMDB, Danny DeVito was at one point set to direct and star as The Shoveller, and I can't help but think DeVito would have embraced the absurdist humor of the source material and would have consequentially made a much better film.

Instead, we're left with a barely watchable comedy that feels like a sadly missed opportunity. If you do want a GOOD comedy about second tier superheroes, watch James Gunn's underrated "The Specials" or his darker superhero comedy "Super" instead.