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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. The final gross - box office was Dollar|$" target="_blank" >*29,762,011 domestic and $3,699,000 foreign* - covered just over half of its production costs.

Plot synopsis

In Champion City, a metropolis in a slightly altered reality, costumed crimefighters (many with somewhat mediocre 'powers') are in oversupply, to the point that most of them are looking for work. Three such individuals are The Shoveller (William H. Macy), whose ability was to wield a shovel extremely well; Mr. Furious (Ben Stiller), who had the 'ability' to get very, very angry; and The Blue Raja (Hank Azaria), a self-described "effete British superhero" who wears a green turban with no blue whatsoever in it and throws silverware (forks and spoons, but not knives - "I'm not Stab Man. I'm not Knifey Boy. I'm the Blue Raja") at villains with high precision.

Their various efforts at crime-fighting - such as a robbery at an old-folks home - are hampered partly by the fact that no one takes them seriously and partly by their own basic incompetence. Each member battles his own basic insecurities - 'Eddie' (The Shoveller) must face the disrespect he receives from his skeptical wife; 'Jeff' (The Blue Raja) must keep his secret hidden from his suspicious mother; and 'Roy' ('Mr. Furious'), in reality a rather mild, gentle person despite his tantrums, must deal with his shy crush on Monica (Claire Forlani), a jaded but goodhearted cafeteria waitress.

A genuine superhero, however, is Captain Amazing (Greg Kinnear), Champion City's most famous and respected superhero, who arrives in the nick of time guaranteed to save the day and hopelessly upstage the 'wanna-bes'. Despite this, Captain Amazing also has a problem: he is so good at what he does, he's putting himself out of business and is running out of supervillains to defeat. And when his public image suffers, so do his corporate sponsorships (his costume is covered with company logos, NASCAR style). As such, in his secret identity (Lance Hunt, distinguished from Amazing solely through his glasses - which seems to have fooled everyone else in the world except Mr. Furious) he secretly arranges the release of his greatest adversary, the insane, devillish Casanova Frankenstein (Geoffrey Rush), from an insane asylum, hoping to revitalize his reputation by once again facing the criminal mastermind. Unfortunately, Frankenstein gets the drop on Captain Amazing (which is helped by the fact that Amazing is remarkably unintelligent and sprays himself with chloroform), captures Amazing and, with the help of his henchmen the 'Disco Boys', led by Tony P. (Eddie Izzard), puts into motion a devious plan to destroy Champion City.

Ironically, the only people who can rescue Amazing are the mundane heroes; unable to do it alone, they audition through the many other (even worse) superheroes in Champion City until they manage to find The Bowler (Janeane Garofalo) who carries the skull, and soul, of her murdered father in a bowling ball which can fly; The Invisible Boy (Kel Mitchell) who could only become invisible when no one is watching, including himself; The Spleen (Paul Reubens), who thanks to a gypsy curse could aim his highly noxious flatulence with deadly precision; The Sphinx (Wes Studi), who can cut guns in half with his mind, but who as a mentor to the misfit superheroes, spends most of his time uttering cryptic but ultimately unhelpful aphorisms; the eccentric scientist Dr. Heller (Tom Waits) who invents strictly "non-lethal" weaponry such as the Canned Tornado, The Shrinker, which shrinks clothes so tight the wearer "can't even breathe", and the "Blame Thrower" which causes a group of people to immediately argue and assign blame to one another, such as Spleen and Bowler.

Inspired by the Sphinx's 'teachings' and armed by Heller's weaponry, the team prepare to rescue Amazing, but not before Furious, feeling increasingly sidelined and ignored (mainly due to his being the only one to see through the Sphinx's various formulaic clichés), storms off in a huff. He is nonetheless talked into going back by Monica who - having previously treated the boorish, over-macho Furious' posturing with complete disdain - sees and likes the real, gentle 'Roy' underneath.

Thus prepared, the superteam are ready to challenge Casanova Frankenstein's devious schemes; however, a bungled rescue attempt sees Captain Amazing fried to death in the most remarkably horrific manner imaginable by Frankenstein's doomsday device the psychofraculator, which Frankenstein intends to turn onto the city. It soon becomes apparent that our heroes are the only ones who can save the day. Matters are not helped when Monica - having fallen in love with Furious - tells Furious to just 'be Roy'; unfortunately, this just leads Roy to the conclusion that his powers are pathetic and not real, and that he's not a real superhero.

Plagued with self-doubt, the heroes nonetheless manage to storm Frankenstein's mansion and battle his various accomplices. As the machine devastates the city, Frankenstein produces Monica, whom he has kidnapped to assure that the heroes will not stop him. Driven into a genuine super-rage by this, Furious defeats Frankenstein in combat, rescues Monica, and leaves him to be destroyed by his own machine, which self-destructs when sabotaged by the heroes. 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'.

Style

The characters' home lives are portrayed as thoroughly middle class American; however Champion City more closely resembles the multicultured metropolis of Blade Runner than the purely American locations of other superhero movies. Signs and newspapers are in a mix of English, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and the occasional Hebrew lettering. Rickshaws run through the dark and misty streets, while stretched-Corvette limousines cruise through gleaming brightly-lit tunnels.

Basis

The movie was loosely based on the independent comic book series Flaming Carrot Comics by Bob Burden, who also gets WGA 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.

The main plot vehicle of seemingly average people with semi-useful powers donning costumes to become crime fighters also bears a strong conceptual similarity to the comic series The Tick, which spawned both an animated TV series which aired in the 1990s and a live-action TV series in 2001.

Cast

Mystery Men

Superheroes

Bad guys

Citizens

See Also

External link

1999 films | Comedy films | Films based on comics | Superhero films

Mystery Men

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Mystery Men".

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