Mystery Men

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Mystery Men
Directed by Kinka Usher
Produced by Lawrence Gordon
Lloyd Levin
Mike Richardson
Written by Comic Strip:
Bob Burden
Screenplay:
Neil Cuthbert
Starring Ben Stiller
Hank Azaria
William H. Macy
Paul Reubens
Janeane Garofalo
Kel Mitchell
Wes Studi
Greg Kinnear
Geoffrey Rush
Claire Forlani
Tom Waits
Eddie Izzard
Lena Olin
Ricky Jay
Louise Lasser
Artie Lange
Music by Stephen Warbeck
Cinematography Stephen H. Burum
Editing by Conrad Buff
Distributed by Universal
Release date(s) August 6, 1999
Running time 121 min.
Country USA
Language English
Budget $68 million
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Mystery Men is a 1999 comedy film directed by TV commercial director Kinka Usher. It starred William H. Macy, Ben Stiller, and Hank Azaria as a trio of lesser superheroes with fairly unimpressive superpowers who need to save the day. The film's two great strengths were considered to be the art direction and the dialogue, much of which was improvised by the cast. Despite its list of stars, Mystery Men was widely considered to be a flop with a final box office gross of just $29,762,011 within the USA and $3,699,000 outside the USA [1].

It has since been developing something of a cult following.[1] The soundtrack prominently featured the Smash Mouth song "All Star" and clips from the film form the basis of the song's video.

Contents

[edit] Plot synopsis

Champion City is a metropolis in a slightly altered comic book-style reality, where costumed criminals of varying skill levels are fairly common, but costumed superheroes are not. Three individuals, 'The Shoveler' (William H. Macy), who can wield a shovel very well; 'Mr. Furious' (Ben Stiller), who is said to possess superhuman strength fueled by his boundless rage (but whose actual "powers" are often a mystery to the other characters); and 'The Blue Raja' (Hank Azaria), a self-described "effete British superhero" (he is actually American, but feigns a British accent when not speaking to his mother) who can throw any silverware with extreme skill, except a knife, have formed a long-running crime fighting team, but have mixed success at it.

Arriving to foil a robbery in an old-folks home by the gaudy Red-Eye Gang, the three are soon in over their heads, as the Blue Raja throws forks, the Shoveler accidentally hits Mr. Furious in the face with his shovel, and Mr. Furious is quickly beaten down. They are upstaged by Captain Amazing (Greg Kinnear), the city's primary superhero, who arrives in the nick of time to save the day. The 'wannabes' are treated as a joke by the police officers and patronized by Captain Amazing himself.

Captain Amazing has a problem, however: he is so good at what he does, he's quickly putting himself out of business. As a result, the lucrative corporate sponsorships he wears emblazoned on his uniform are at risk. The Captain (in his secret identity as bespectacled billionaire district attorney 'Lance Hunt') secretly arranges for the release of his greatest adversary, the insane, devilish Casanova Frankenstein (Geoffrey Rush), from the insane asylum where he has been imprisoned for twenty years. He assumes that Frankenstein will soon fall back into a life of crime, and be defeated just as quickly. Unfortunately, Frankenstein manages to get the drop on Captain Amazing, capturing him and putting into motion a devious plan to destroy Champion City. He is aided by the 'Disco Boys', a late-1970s-themed criminal gang led by Tony P (Eddie Izzard).

Mr. Furious, The Shoveler and The Blue Raja are stuck defending the city in Amazing's absence. Given the debacle at the old-folk's home, they audition many other (typically worse) "heroes" to augment the team, until they manage to find 'The Bowler' (Janeane Garofalo) who wields a magic flying bowling ball holding the skull of her murdered father; 'The Invisible Boy' (Kel Mitchell) who claims to have the power of invisibility (but only when no one is looking at him); 'The Spleen' (Paul Reubens), who can aim his highly noxious flatulence with deadly precision due to a Gypsy curse; 'The Sphinx' (Wes Studi), who can cut guns in half with his mind, but spends most of his time uttering cryptic but ultimately unhelpful aphorisms ("When you can balance a tack hammer on your head, you can head off your foe with a balanced attack"); and an eccentric scientist 'Dr. Heller' (Tom Waits) who invents eccentric non-lethal weaponry (the Blamethrower, Clothes Shrinker, Tornado-in-a-Can, etc.). After assembling the team, they build out a Herkimer Battle Jitney as their means of travel.

In addition to honing their skills, the original three heroes must also battle issues in their 'real lives': The Shoveler (real name: Eddie) has a skeptical wife and three children to consider; The Blue Raja (real name: Jeff) keeps his activities hidden from his suspicious mother; and Mr. Furious (real name: Roy) must deal with the fact that he is being increasingly sidelined and ignored in the larger team, as he is the only one who can see through the formulaic clichés uttered by The Sphinx. He also has crush on Monica (Claire Forlani), a jaded but goodhearted cafeteria waitress who treats the boorish, posturing 'Furious' with disdain but likes the sweet, shy 'Roy'.

After a brief crisis when Furious storms off following a heated argument, the superteam manage to work through their issues and decide to rescue Captain Amazing. The attempt goes awry, and Captain Amazing is accidentally killed by Frankenstein's doomsday device, the psycho-frakulator, which Frankenstein intends to use on the city. Matters are not helped when Monica - having fallen for Roy - tells Furious to 'just... be... Roy'. Roy, whose "powers" are based on one questionable incident (in which he lifted up a city bus), comes to believe that he is not a superhero.

The heroes, though plagued with self-doubt, nonetheless manage to storm Frankenstein's mansion and battle his various accomplices as Frankenstein activates his machine, which begins to devastate the city. Using Dr. Heller's devices, they manage to overpower the various henchmen, and Tony P is killed by the Bowler's ball in vengeance for his murder of her father. Frankenstein produces Monica - whom he has had kidnapped as insurance. Driven into a genuine super-rage, Furious defeats Frankenstein in combat, hurling him to his death in the psychofrakulator, and rescues Monica. The heroes sabotage the machine and flee as it explodes and destroys Frankenstein's mansion. Having saved the city and earned the admiration of their families, friends and fellow citizens, the heroes then turn to their next great challenge - finding a name for their team that's better than 'The Super Squad'. A reporter at the scene refers to them as the "mystery men."

[edit] Basis

The movie was loosely based on the independent comic book series Flaming Carrot Comics by Bob Burden, who also gets Writers Guild of America writing credits, though some characters were greatly changed from the original material. The Flaming Carrot was a member of the team and with the exception of Captain Amazing and Invisible Boy, all the heroes from the film appeared at least once as members (though there were many others as well-- the comics team had a high casualty rate). Casanova Frankenstein also once battled The Flaming Carrot.

[edit] Cultural References

  • The scene in which Casanova Frankenstein rallies the different gangs together is a parody of a scene from the film The Warriors. Frankenstein even uses the same catch-phrase uttered by the gang leader Cyrus: "Can you dig it?"[citation needed]
  • Captain Amazing's alter-ego hides his face behind glasses, a reference to Superman/Clark Kent and is a billionaire, a reference to Batman's Bruce Wayne:
The Shoveler: Oh yeah, well, maybe if we had a billionaire like Lance Hunt as our benefactor, then we could afford some advertising.
Mr. Furious: That's because Lance Hunt is Captain Amazing.
Blue Raja: Oh, here we go.
Shoveler: Oh, don't start that again! Lance Hunt wears glasses. Captain Amazing doesn't wear glasses.
Mr. Furious: [Long-suffering] He takes them off when he transforms.
Shoveler: That doesn't make any sense. He wouldn't be able to see!
  • After defeating Casanova Frankenstein, Mr. Furious picks up his girlfriend and leaps from the second floor balcony of the mansion to the first floor below. The sound effect heard while he jumps is identical to the one used in the TV series The Six Million Dollar Man when Steve Austin jumped using his bionic legs.
  • Twice in the film there are references to a now infamous audio clip of William Shatner from a looping session for Star Trek. First, when Mr. Furious is corrected by Casanova Frankenstein, he responds with "Don't correct me. It sickens me", a direct quote from Shatner, and the second being delivered by the Bowler as they are leaving a bar, she states "I say sabotage, sabotage" (pronouncing the letter 'a' in the same way as the first, as opposed to the 'ah' sound with which it is usually pronounced). Shatner states the same in the audio clip. Shatner, however, took it a step further, and proceeded to slip in a 'sobatage'.
  • Two auditoners are dressed up in Wonder Woman costumes and later fight each other thinking one copied the other.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Mystery Men

[edit] Superheroes

[edit] Bad guys

[edit] Citizens


[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Rabin, Nathan.| My Year of Flops Case File #24 Mystery Men. 17 April, 2007. Retrieved on 4 June, 2007

[edit] External links

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