CCC Reviews
Mystery Men
Everybody has probably heard the Offspring song "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)". No? Well, this is the song for all the wannabes in the world. Mystery Men, is the movie for all the wannabes in the world. The premise is simple, Champion City, home of Captain Amazing, is a town ridden with crime and supervillians. With the release of their most vicous supervillian, Casanova Frankenstein, Captain Amazing is captured and held prisoner at gunpoint. A rag-tag gang of underground superheroes form a plan to rescue the Captain and to help save the city.
The story isn't where this movie shines, the orginality of the characters is where everything comes together. Each character is so completely random that you can't forget a single one of them. Ben Stiller (There's Something About Mary) plays the main character Mr. Furious who is powered completely by his unpredictable rage. William H. Macy (Air Force One) plays The Shoveler, a mature family man with the gift of "shoveling well." Hank Azaria (Godzilla) plays the fork weilding kiss up Blue Raja. Janeane Garafalo (The Truth About Cats and Dogs) plays The Bowler, the daughter of the original bowler who was killed by one of the Disco Boys. Her bowling ball also has her father's skull embedded inside of it, not to mention, the ball is possessed. Kel Mitchel (Good Burger) plays the young Invisible Boy who can only turn invisible when nobody's looking. The infamous Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee's Big Adventure) plays the smelly, flatulant Spleen who's catch phrase was "Pull my finger." Need I say more? The mentor of the group, The Sphinx was played by Wes Studi (The Last of the Mohicans). His predictable anecdotes were entertaining as was his power to break guns with his mind. Greg Kinnear (You've Got Mail) plays the stuck up Captain Amazing. Geoffrey Rush (Shine) plays the psychotic Casanova Frankenstein. Claire Forlani (Meet Joe Black) plays the love interest of Mr. Furious, or Roy as she wants him to be.
This star-studded cast powers their way through the comic book scenes and unique situations with their shovels, rage and forks. The story line was, as I said, a bit creative, but normal as far as a comic book would go. This movie had plenty of one liners, moments for every single character, Garafalo's revenge, Stiller's rage control, Macy's realization and Mitchel's moment of truth.
The sets and costumes were very unique as were every single side aspect of the movie. The vehicles that were used were amazing. An old station wagon, a non-military armored vehicle, a Chevrolet Corvette stretch limo and a Harley Davidson hog. The gangs were creative yet lame at the same time. The Frat Boys and The Disco Boys top off my list.
Mystery Men was definitly a fun movie to attend, aside from the few sexual references and the surprise in the killing of a character, it's definitly a must see. Psychotic villians, psychotic heroes, psychotic situations...hmm...does this make it normal? Nah...
Scores for Mystery Men
RyoKazama534 -- 
-- "Great cast, great fun, loved the characters."
JenT99 -- -- "Random but really funny."
Raptor -- img src="http://homepages.go.com/~klick53/7up_anm.gif"> -- "That was pretty cool."
Zul the Conqueror -- -- "It was sooo psycho!"
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