Meanderings: September 7, 1999

Tuesday,
September 7, 1999

Oh, my sweeties and darlings, my stomach is aching from laughter, and I need a hankie to wipe the tears of mirth away from my eyes. If you haven't seen it yet, run, don't walk, to your nearest cinema and buy a ticket for MYSTERY MEN. I haven't laughed like that since. . . well, since last weekend, but that was under the influence of friends and blood sugar. This was a purely comedic cinematic experience.

A brief recap: Champion City (in an opening sequence that is a squirmingly hilarious piss-take on BATMAN) is almost out of supervillains, thanks to Captain Amazing (Greg Kinnear), a smarmy superhero who knows the power of commerical endorsements. One little problem -- by putting all the supervillains away, he's about to superhero himself out of a job and lose all of those remunerative endorsements. Of course, that would simply never do. So, in his (what else) millionaire alter ego, he convinces a local parole board to release superbaddie Casanova Frankenstein (played by a scenery-chewing Geoffrey Rush) from the local loony hall, and waits for the inevitable crime spree that can only be stopped by Captain Amazing.

That's on the top-tier level of superheroism. A few tiers down, a trio of wannabe superheroes with even more questionable powers are doing their damndest to fight crime (usually getting their faces kicked in as a result). The Shoveler (William H. Macy, in his patented "Decent Blue-Collar Kind of Guy" mode) is a guy who can. . .well, he can shovel. Really well, mind you. The Blue Rajah, Master of Silverware (Hank Azaria, taking full advantage of his Simpson-honed vocal skills) is a faux Brit who flings forks and spoons at the bad guys -- for reasons we never fully understand, however, he won't do knives. And then, there's Mr. Dangerous (Ben Stiller), whose superpower is. . .well, he gets really, really angry. That's it -- he just gets angry. Nice bulging veins in your forehead, Ben.

These three stooges wind up thrust into the forefront when Casanova Frankenstein captures the Captain (in a scene that spoofs every Bond film ever made) and they realize that rescuing the superpowered schmuck is up to them. They manage to recruit three more team members who are even goofier than they are (it's especially nice to see Paul Reubens back, as the gastrointestinally-challenged Spleen), as well as a mysterious guru called the Sphinx whose mirror-image mantras ("A man who hates his enemies, will find that his enemy is hate) drive Mr. Dangerous up a wall, before it's time to launch a rescue mission to save Captain Amazing and prove their own questionable worth as superheroes.

What makes this movie work is the gleeful spoofing of everything from the BATMAN series to HENRY V, as well as a sly turn on the pragmatic aspects of being a superhero -- the Shoveler trying to explain to his disbelieving wife that he'll be spending the evening fighting crime -- again, Mr. Dangerous dealing with his hellish dayjob, and Invisible Boy's 99% useless superpower -- he can only become invisible when nobody -- including himself -- is looking at him. Add to that some brilliantly snappy dialog by Stiller, Janeanne Garofalo (as the babe bowler from hell), Azaria and the incomparable Eddie Izzard, and you've got something that just keeps going and going and going way beyond the point of no return. God, I only hope they do a sequel -- I'm dying to know if Baby Bowler, having avenged her father's death, makes it back to grad school or not.

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