Mystery Men

by Igor Stanojevic

Cast: Ben Stiller, William H. Macy, Hank Azaria, Geoffrey Rush, Janeane Garofalo, Greg Kinnear, Paul Reubens, Claire Forlani
Director: Kinka Usher
Screenplay: Neil Cuthbert (Based on the comic book by Bob Burden)

A while back, there was a comic book about a second string team of superheroes called “Mystery Men”. It was a great comic simply because the guys in it were normal people fighting crime with some seriously mediocre powers. While there were many recurring members of the team, I feel the movie included all the best ones minus Flaming Carrot, but it would be odd seeing a guy with a huge flaming carrot on his head sit in a diner and lament over the success of Captain Amazing, a real superhero.

First, there`s Mr. Furious, a kind of an unestablished leader of the gang, whose power is to get really, really angry, The Shoveler, to who God gave the gift to, as he says, “Shovel well, shovel very, very well”, The Spleen, who can shoot farts with dead-on-balls accuracy, Invisible Boy who can only become invisible when no one`s looking and Blue Raja, a cutlery master (he throws forks at criminals). So how`s that for a crime fighting team?

And when Captain Amazing is kidnapped by his arch-nemesis Casanova Frankenstein, all`s left up to our gang of misfit superheroes.

The cast contains one Oscar winner, two Oscar nominees, and some of the best comedians around. Geoffrey Rush delivers another fine performance, but this is a custom made role for Stiller. He is neurotic, but good-hearted guy, always trying to come off as a badass, but rarely getting there. Janeane Garofalo is brilliant as The Bowler, daughter of the Original Bowler, whose head is now in the bowling ball. She`s in it for revenge. The thing about her is that she talks to her daddy`s skull. Now this could`ve been done really bad by a lesser comedian, but Garofalo makes talking to a skull in a bowling ball seem easy. William H. Macy plays his classical square-middle age-middle class folk character as good as in every other movie (which is great).

This is a silly little movie with a killer cast, pretty good script and infinite amount of good humor. It sent me into a laughing mayhem a coupla` times. Absolutely memorable.

Home