Mystery Men is, in my opinion, the finest superhero movie ever made. I can hardly put it into words. The directing is excellent. The acting is wonderful. The casting is perfect. The cinematography is just Amazing. The writing is genius; the only other notable film among the writer's other credits include the nauseating The Return of Swamp Thing, so I don't know if he had a flash of genius, or if the script evolved during production.

The movie begins with Champion City's greatest hero (Captain Amazing - Greg Kinnear) having to bail out a group of second string superheroes (Mr. Furious - Ben Stiller, The Shoveler - William H. Macy, and The Blue Raja - Hank Azaria), as they once again get their butts beat while trying to fight crime. The three would-be crimefighters are later joined by The Bowler (Janeane Garafalo), The Spleen (Paul Reubens), The Sphinx (Wes Studi), and Invisible Boy (Kel Mitchell) and summon the courage to work through their individual issues and as a team fight the evil Casanova Frankenstein (Geoffrey Shine). [Claire Forlani has a small part, and the incredible Tom Waits has an excellent cameo.]

This movie has everything - some great superhero lines, a Disco gang, an insane asylum, a Corvette Limo. It even solves the mystery of how a simple pair of glasses can work as a disguise for Superman.

The Mystery Men were born in the pages of Bob Burden's Flaming Carrot Comics. All of the heroes in the movie originally appeared in this title, but the Mystery Men never even had their own comic until after the movie came out.

			See it if you are in any way, shape, or form a fan of comic books. Don't see it if you don't want to lighten up and suspend disbelief for a few minutes.

© 2005 Jim Manchester