Mystery Men (1999)

A Fun Sci-Fi/Comic book/Comedy
In a few sentence review: This is a fun movie good for a rainy day or lazy weekend afternoon. You will enjoy the banter between the characters and find the film quite humorous, but do not expect to actually laugh out loud much. (I didn't at all).


For the film reference buff:
It is sure to please fans of any of the notable stars of the film: Stiller, Hank Azaria, William H. Macy, Paul Reubens, Janeane Garofalo, Kel Mitchell (of All That on Nickelodeon in the mid-90's),Greg Kinnear, Geoffrey Rush, Tom Waits, Eddie Izzard and Artie Lange. Even Dane Cook and Praz from the Fugees are in it. All cast members do a fine job of portraying their respected characters.

The director, Kinka Usher, this was his first and only directed movie. He is most famous for his direction of the "Yo Quiero Taco Bell" commercials.

For cinematography junkies:
The art direction was superb. The costumes were perfectly ridiculous. The city was dark and gritty. I particularly enjoyed the scenes of "Champion City" as it was called. This includes set design similar to most Sci-Fi movies, however it seems I just can't get enough of it. The idea to throw in other languages on billboards throughout the city was also quite clever, particularly the choice of languages: English, Hindi, Russian, Japanese, and Chinese. These are some of the most widely spoken languages today (by number of speakers).

Mystery Stars
Mystery Men is a weird, off-beat comedy not unlike the strange 80's classic, Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. Want-to-be heroes try to make their way up to the popular status of fictional Champion City's current hero, Captain Amazing (Greg Kinear), an endorsement-clad, ego enhanced crime fighter. What are really interesting are the appearances of actors (of such caliber as Geoffrey Rush (Casanova Frankenstein) and artist such as Gnarls Barkley (singer of the pop hit "Crazy"), comedian Dane Cook (Waffle Man), and director Michael Bay (one of the Frat Boys). Who knew?

under rated comedy
I think this is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. You'll especially enjoy the fun poked at super heroes and comic books if you grew up reading them as I did.