Mystery Men (1999)

I will say right away: I think this movie is pretty great. Loosely based on Flaming Carrot Comics, Mystery Men follows a gang of wannabe superheroes who discover that their city's dominant asshole caped crusader, Captain Amazing (Greg Kinnear), has been kidnapped by grossly-fingernailed supervillain Casanova Frankenstein (Geoffrey Rush). The hapless trio, composed of The Shoveler (William H Macy), the utensil-throwing Blue Raja (Hank Azaria), and sometimes-super-strong Mr Furious (Ben Stiller), decides to recruit new team members to launch a rescue mission. The deadly-farting Spleen (Paul Reubens), the Invisible Boy (Kel Mitchell), who's only invisible when no one's watching, and The Bowler (Janeane Garofalo), whose flying bowling ball has a mind of its own, join them.

Meanwhile Casanova is gathering together a team of villains so he can take over the city. His right-hand men are Tony P (Eddie Izzard) and the Disco Boys. The good guys try unsuccessfully to break Captain Amazing out of Casanova's castle, only succeeding in setting off a deadly weapon and bickering amongst themselves. The mysterious Sphinx (Wes Studi) comes to their aid and runs a short boot camp to teach them to work together and develop their powers. They also enlist the help of eccentric weapons inventor Dr Heller (Tom Waits). Finally it's time for the big showdown at the castle, made more serious when Casanova holds Mr Furious' love interest Monica (Claire Forlani) hostage.

Despite being written by Neil "The Adventures of Pluto Nash" Cuthbert, this movie is hilarious thanks to the comedic timing and improvising of its stellar cast. It's full of some really funny dialogue and memorable one-liners. Ben Stiller works in ridiculously mixed metaphors while Azaria shows off his British accent; Tom Waits is adorable and crazy and William H Macy is funny-serious. Of course Janeane Garofalo steals the show, as she does in anything she has ever done because she is the best. She's got that excellent deadpan sarcasm and quick, referential wit, and her character even has the best superpower. I also really liked The Sphinx's palindromic advice ("To learn my teachings, I must first teach you to learn", etc). Paul Reubens and Kel Mitchell are kind of annoying (especially the former), but they're not in it too much so no big deal.

The premise is great; I love the idea of the much-beloved main superhero being a major jerk obsessed with securing more endorsements, and the lesser talented guys with vaguely silly powers scrambling to defeat a big-time villain. It's a fun parody of the genre and full of little gags and jokes that you might miss the first time around, making it good for multiple viewings. I'm not sure why it did so poorly at the box office and is now generally held to be a bad film. I just think it's really funny and enjoyable, especially for fans of superheroes. And it's got some good use of Smash Mouth.

4/5