It looked stupid but I sometimes like stupid movies and I didn't have to pay to rent it so it seemed worth watching.
Crime is on the decrease in Champion City and Captain Amazing is worried as without any big fights he'll soon lose his corporate sponsors, after searching his list of past ... Read review
Ever wonder if there was a class system in the world of superheroes? After all the big ... more
names likeSuperman, Batman, Spider-Man,etc., who were the supporting players? The folks assigned to the less-than-stellar gigs of saving only a small part of the wor...
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The hippest cast in history has united to become the funniest superhero team ever. Ben ... more
Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Hank Azaria, William H. Macy, Greg Kinnear, Geoffrey Rush, and Paul Reubens join forces in this wild, funny and thoroughly original misadv...
The hippest cast in history has united to become the funniest superhero team ever. Ben ... more
Stiller Janeane Garofalo Hank Azaria William H Macy Greg Kinnear and Paul Reubens join forces to battle Geoffrey Rush in this wild funny and thoroughly original...
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Ever wonder if there was a class system in the world of superheroes? After all the big ... more
names likeSuperman, Batman, Spider-Man,etc., who were the supporting players? The folks assigned to the less-than-stellar gigs of saving only a small part of the wor...
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Reality Bites: Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke and Ben Stiller (directing his first feature ... more
film) star in this wildly romantic comedy that looks at life, love and the pursuit of gainful employment through the eyes of a generation sandwiched somewhere between The Brady Bunch and Melrose Place! As her college valedictorian, Lelaina Pierce (Ryder) should be destined for greatness. In reality she is a lowly production assistant for an obnoxious TV morning show host (John Mahoney). In her free time, Lelaina is making a biting, often outrageous video documentary about her peers: promiscuous, '70's-crazed roommate Vickie (Janeane Garofalo), sexually repressed Sammy (Steve Zahn) and best friend Troy (Hawke), a brilliant but unmotivated rebel. Meanwhile, Lelaina meets Michael (Stiller), an ambitious video executive who wants to showcase her documentary on In Your Face TV. Suddenly, she finds herself at the centre of a very odd love triangle with dependable, fast-track Michael on one side and a sexy, brooding troy on the other.Mystery Men: The hippest cast in history has united to become the funniest superhero team ever. Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Hank Azaria, William H. Macy, Greg Kinnear, Geoffrey Rush and Paul Reubens join forces in this wild, funny and thoroughly original misadventure. When Captain Amazing, Champion City's legendary superhero, falls into the hands of the evil madman Casanova Frankenstein and his disco-dancing henchmen, there's suddenly a chance for the aspiring superheroes to show what they can do. They're the Mystery Men... a ragtag team of superhero wannabes featuring: Mr. Furious, whose power comes from his boundless rage; The Shoveler, a father who shovels better than anyone; The Blue Raja, a fork-flinging mama's boy; The Bowler, who fights crime with the help of her father's skull; The Spleen, whose power is pure flatulence; Invisible Boy, who's only invisible when no one's watching and The Sphinx, a cliche-spewing philosopher. With its outrageous adventure, incredible cast and hip alternative humour, Mystery Men is so irresistibly funny and appealing, seeing it just once will never be enough.Your Friends And Neighbors: One of the most talked about comedies of the season, Your Friends And Neighbors is the story of six people who can't seem to stay out of each other's bedrooms. Six of today's hottest young celebrities star in a film critics raved about. If you enjoy passion, lust and light-hearted humour, this is your circle of friends.
Ever wonder if there was a class system in the world of superheroes? After all the big ... more
names like Superman, Batman and Spider-Man, who were the supporting players assigned to the less-than-stellar gigs of saving only a small part of the world? According to thisintermittently successful send-up of comic-book heroism, there are indeed masked heroes who struggle and toil for their moment in the super sun. Based on the Dark Horse comic book series,Mystery Menfollows the travails of three B-list avengers--Mr. Furious (Ben Stiller), the Shoveler (William H. Macy) and the Blue Raja (Hank Azaria)--as they fight to make themselves known to the citizens of Champion City, quite difficult to do when the flashy Captain Amazing (Greg Kinnear, never better) takes all the plum jobs and has the market in product endorsements sewn up. According to them, it's all a matter of timing--never mind that Mr. Furious never rises above a snit, or that the Blue Raja wears green. Their big break comes when Captain Amazing is abducted by the evil Casanova Frankenstein (Geoffrey Rush), and it's up to this motley crew to save Champion City.Blessed with a wondrously gifted comic cast and full of droll details,Mystery Menstruggles in fits and spurts towards its climax. Transcendently witty in parts, it's also woefully sophomoric in others. Still, when this movie is rolling, it's gleefully on target, thanks primarily to the mordantly cocky Stiller and Janeane Garofalo as a latecomer to the superhero gang; her secret weapon is a bowling ball in which her dead father's head is encased. The comic chemistry between these two is fierce, and when you add the dryly funny Macy and the endearing Azaria (who finally gets a chance to let loose with his comic gifts), it's a hilarious joyride. Too bad that the gas tank is only half-full; this stunning cast deserves a first-rate vehicle. It also stars Tom Waits as a weapons expert, Claire Forlani as the requisite babe and Paul Reubens (aka Pee-Wee Herman) as the Spleen, the world's most flatulent superhero. --Mark Englehart
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Ever wonder if there was a class system in the world of superheroes? After all the big ... more
names like Superman, Batman and Spider-Man, who were the supporting players assigned to the less-than-stellar gigs of saving only a small part of the world? According to thisintermittently successful send-up of comic-book heroism, there are indeed masked heroes who struggle and toil for their moment in the super sun. Based on the Dark Horse comic book series,Mystery Menfollows the travails of three B-list avengers--Mr. Furious (Ben Stiller), the Shoveler (William H. Macy) and the Blue Raja (Hank Azaria)--as they fight to make themselves known to the citizens of Champion City, quite difficult to do when the flashy Captain Amazing (Greg Kinnear, never better) takes all the plum jobs and has the market in product endorsements sewn up. According to them, it's all a matter of timing--never mind that Mr. Furious never rises above a snit, or that the Blue Raja wears green. Their big break comes when Captain Amazing is abducted by the evil Casanova Frankenstein (Geoffrey Rush), and it's up to this motley crew to save Champion City.Blessed with a wondrously gifted comic cast and full of droll details,Mystery Menstruggles in fits and spurts towards its climax. Transcendently witty in parts, it's also woefully sophomoric in others. Still, when this movie is rolling, it's gleefully on target, thanks primarily to the mordantly cocky Stiller and Janeane Garofalo as a latecomer to the superhero gang; her secret weapon is a bowling ball in which her dead father's head is encased. The comic chemistry between these two is fierce, and when you add the dryly funny Macy and the endearing Azaria (who finally gets a chance to let loose with his comic gifts), it's a hilarious joyride. Too bad that the gas tank is only half-full; this stunning cast deserves a first-rate vehicle. It also stars Tom Waits as a weapons expert, Claire Forlani as the requisite babe and Paul Reubens (aka Pee-Wee Herman) as the Spleen, the world's most flatulent superhero. --Mark Englehart
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Comedy - Original Language: English - Classification: 12 years and over - Starring: Tessa Peake-Jones, Buster Merryfield, David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst
Comedy - Director: Richard Boden, Mandie Fletcher, Martin Shardlow - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Hugh Laurie, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Fry, Brian Blessed, Tim McInnerny, Tony Robinson, Rowan Atkinson
Advantages: Funny Disadvantages: Takes time out of your life to watch, Costs Money, You may hate it
It looked stupid but I sometimes like stupid movies and I didn't have to pay to rent it so it seemed worth watching.
Crime is on the decrease in Champion City and Captain Amazing is worried as without any big fights he'll soon lose his corporate sponsors, after searching his list of past villains and discarding the ones that are dead he finds that Casanova Frankenstein is up for parole and decides to make sure he gets it. When things ... ...group of inept superheroes to save him. Finding themselves easily outmatched (after all they are inept) the 3 superheroes decide they need to find more people to join with them in their fight.
The cast looked promising and for a comedy film really do act well.
Ben Stiller (There's Something About Mary, Meet the Parents etc.) plays Mr. Furious (or Roy) who can.... get angry. He seemed to play his part as well as in ... more
It looked stupid but I sometimes like stupid movies and I didn't have to pay to rent it so it seemed worth watching.
Crime is on the decrease in Champion City and Captain Amazing is worried as without any big fights he'll soon lose his corporate sponsors, after searching his list of past villains and discarding the ones that are dead he finds that Casanova Frankenstein is up for parole and decides to make sure he gets it. When things go wrong and he gets captured it's up to a group of inept superheroes to save him. Finding themselves easily outmatched (after all they are inept) the 3 superheroes decide they need to find more people to join with them in their fight.
The cast looked promising and for a comedy film really do act well.
Ben Stiller (There's Something About Mary, Meet the Parents etc.) plays Mr. Furious (or Roy) who can.... get angry. He seemed to play his part as well as in other films and I could find few faults with it.
Hank Azaria I've never heard of before but he's actually been in quite a few things, normally as a voice it seems rather than a person though (yes I do know voices come from people). Among others he is the voice of Apu, Moe, Chief Wiggum and quite a few other characters in The Simpsons. He plays the part of The Blue Raja (otherwise known as Jeff) who has the power to throw forks at people. His performance here is of a good standard and very comical when he plays his superhero character (possibly the funniest character in the film) and only really falters when we are shown his real life as Jeff, luckily this is a small part of the film and not of any real importance. Expect a lot of bad fork jokes from him (such as "May the forks be with us!") which seem to somehow get funnier the more of them you hear even though they shouldn't.
William H. Macy (Jurassic Park 3, Pleasantville, Air Force One and lots of other things) plays The Shoveler, an expert with a shovel. Probably the most important member of the group and I felt put in the best performance as an actor too, he was one of the few people in the film I felt played their real life (when they aren't a superhero) convincingly.
Janeane Garofalo I recognised from Dogma but has also been in quite a few other things, most of which I have never heard of. She plays The Bowler who seems to be one of the only people in the group with any useful weapon (the skull of her deceased father encased in a golden bowling ball). Her performance is good but not great, at times it seemed perfect while at other times it seemed terrible.
Kel Mitchell (don't ask me, I've never heard of him) plays The Invisible Boy who has the power to turn invisible, with a catch, he can only turn invisible if no-one can see him (including himself) making his power of limited use. His performance wasn't poor but it wasn't that great either.
Other than these character there is also Paul Reubens who plays The Spleen (with the power of flatulence), Wes Studi who plays The Sphinx (with the power of being really mysterious and great advice such as "before you can learn my teachings, I must teach you to learn") Greg Kinnear who plays Captain Amazing (who can't also be Lance Hunt because Lance Hunt wears glasses and Captain Amazing doesn't), Geoffrey Rush who plays Casanova Frankenstein (evil genius with a deadly fingernail) and Lena Olin, Eddie Izzard and a variety of other characters.
This seems to be the sort of film that people either really like or hate, it's hard to really describe why you find something funny as almost everyones sense of humour differs. The humour comes not only from the jokes but from the way they are carried out and how the characters act while the jokes take place, there are many films which sound funny on paper but make terrible films and other things that don't sound that funny on paper but turn out to be really funny in the film. The film does a mixture of jokes ranging from parodies of comic book (superhero not recognisable without his glasses) characters to obvious/stupid jokes (running into something, falling over etc.) to many well thought out jokes .You don't tend to find many subtle jokes here but at least this means you don't really have to think about what you are watching but instead just watch it. There will certainly be some bits of humour in the film you won't like but there is enough variety here for almost anyone to find at least a few things they like.
Overall I really enjoyed this film and it is one of the few recent comedies I have watched that actually remained funny all the way through and that I would watch again. The film never seemed to be that popular and I've read many poor opinions on it but I would personally recommend it to just about anyone, it's not the best film in the world but it should give you a few laughs and is well worth the watch.
Advantages: Extremely watchable cast, the Smash Mouth song, plenty of extras on the disc Disadvantages: All the elements just don't seem to quite gel
...that matter) it's questionable whether Mystery Men's essential concept and story has enough promise to make it work as a full-length feature. A team of bumbling, incompetent superheroes with embarrassing defects doesn't sound all that enticing, does it?
For the film to succeed, it would require the central performers to work minor miracles with their characters, drawing upon all their unquestionable talents. That Mystery Men is only half the turkey ... ...you get a film like Mystery Men.
The DVD edition is yet another of those titles which attempts to cover up the failings of the feature itself with a host of tempting goodies on the extras front. The full-length commentary's main problem is that the director here clearly thinks his film is a lot better than it actually is, rendering a lot of his comments worthless. You cannot intellectualise over a film of this kind. 19 minutes of deleted scenes ...
EnglishPatient 27.02.2001 (28.02.2001)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Mystery Men (DVD)
Where do I start with Mystery Men, well the first thing that I have to say is that if you are going to watch this I would say that you should view this film with an open wind. This is a kind of spoof super hero film, which has actually been based on a comic book, so expect this film to be little strange in places. Also the humour that is used in the film is not to everyone’s taste I will admit, but it made me chuckle, which it always a good ... ...find a video version of Mystery Men. But I am sure that they must have released a copy on Video Tape. ~~My Thoughts~~ When this was released in the cinema I never actually got to see any trailer for it, onfact I’m sure this film didn’t get as much recognition as it should have. I saw this in the cinema on New Years Day 2000, me and a group of friends went to the cinema, me as usual said I want to see something light hearted, nothing too ...
ia_young 13.04.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Mystery Men (DVD)
Advantages: Great ideas and situations backed up by Super-cast Disadvantages: Over long and sometime thin on big laughs.
Mystery Men is an unusual comedy about superheros who have useless abilities such as fork throwing and shouting a lot. It's the kind of movie you'd expect from people like Ben Stiller and Hank Azaria.
The story revolves around Captain Amazing (Greg Kinnear who was also in “As good as it gets”). Early on he is captured by Cassanova Frankenstien (Geoffrey Rush) and the rest of the superheros feel it is up to them to save the day. The main ... ...throws forks , The Spleen ( Paul Ruebens) who farts, Mr Furious (Ben Stiller) who get very angry and shouts and The Shoveler ( William H. Macy ) shovels and Janeane Garofalo as The Bowler. The Sphinx is also a great character with his ludicrous sayings such as “To learn my teachings, I must first teach you how to learn” and “When you can balance a tack hammer on your head, you can head off your foes with a balanced attack.”
...
danbot9 03.05.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Mystery Men (DVD)
Advantages: Funny movie with lots of silly stuff. Disadvantages: No Mystery Men 2
First time I saw this film, I thought it was hilarious. A complete spoof of Batman and Superman genre.
Super hero Captain Amazing is so good at his job that crime in Champion City is practically non existent. Which of course means that his sponsorship deals with various companies (sign of the times or what!) are falling by the wayside due to lack of exposure.
An attempted robbery at an old folks tea dance introduces us to the wannabes Mr. Furious, ... ...shovels better than anyone and The Blue Raja, a mommy's boy who has a way with cutlery - but no knives as they might hurt someone!
Their valiant attempts to stop the robbery fails dismally and Captain Amazing rushes in to save the day once more. Bored with the lack of 'action' Lance a.k.a.Captain Amazing (the glasses he wears protects his true identity you know!) attends the parole hearing of his nemises Casanova Frankenstein. With the help of Casanova's ...
Sushi 10.05.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Mystery Men (DVD)
Advantages: worth seeing on a wet afternoon Disadvantages: Not as funny as it assumes it is
...into the breach step the mystery men:-
The fury - who gets very angry
The shoveller - who has a shovel
The blue Raja - who throws cutlery (but not knives)
The spleen - who passes lethal wind
the bowler - who has an animated bowling ball
Invisible boy - who can turn invisible if no one's looking
The sphinx - very mysterious but actually has some powers.
Obviously not a very inspiring team and the plot follows the basic superhero plot of the ... ...-they actually kill Captain Amazing - but eventually they beat the baddie and save the city.
There are several interesting spins on the usual superhero agenda in that to be a superhero you need a supervillian so Captain Amazing release's Rasputin so that he has someone to fight, Captain Amazing knowledge that he is really a moving advertising hoarding, the ridicule given to the disco boys for not following through a concept properly when they carry ...
brownp1 08.03.2001 (07.03.2001)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Mystery Men (DVD)
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Advantages: good old action movie Disadvantages: not much of a plot
Barrymore's ET shirt for proof of that. I get the impression that alot of people were expecting a M:I2 style remake, and thus missed the point of this wonderful film.
If you want a great Kung-fu movie, go rent "Enter the Dragon". If you want a deep and meaningful plot, "Fight Club" has been released on DVD. If you want a day-glo cross between MysteryMen, Austin Powers and any James Bond movie you care to mention, all wrapped up in a stunning soundtrack and very modern effects, go see Charlie's Angels. ...
Original Theatrical Trailer, Production Notes, Deleted Scenes, Directors Commentary, Origins Of Mystery Men Featurette, Music Highlights, Cast And Film Makers Biographies, Interactive DVD ROM, Spotlight On Location
Aspect Ratio
1.85 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Sound
Dolby Digital 5.1
Dubbing Sound
Dolby Digital 5.1 English
Professional reviews
Review
"...Plenty of sharp satire....More than just another [superhero] joke..." -- Rating: B+ (Entertainment Weekly, pp.80-1, 14/01/2000)
"...[A] crafty, tongue-in-cheek satire....With a terrific, offbeat cast operating on one shared, loony wavelength..." (New York Times, p.E14, 06/08/1999)
"...MYSTERY MEN succeeds where others have failed thanks to inventive ideas and a quality, rib-stroking cast. Stiller, Macy and Garofalo all turn in pitch-perfect performances..." (Total Film, p.103, 01/07/2000)
"...Sharply written, with a lavish look and top-drawer effects adding to the appeal of its large and talented cast..." (Variety, p.32-3, 01/08/1999)
DVD Description
When Captain Amazing, chief superhero of Champion City, is kidnapped by insane supervillain Casanova Frankenstein, who will save the city and ensure that justice is served?
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