It is unfortunate for a film to be released ahead of its time. It is even more unfortunate when it is relased shortly before its time. Such poor fate has befallen on Mystery Men, 1999 superhero comedy directed by Kinka Usher.

The film is based on The Flaming Carrot series of darkly humorous comic books by Bob Burden. The plot is set in Champion City, place where superheroes, like the rest of society, are divided between those, like Captain Amazing (played by Greg Kinnear), can rely on superior powers, wealth and fame and those those that can’t. Three protagonists belong to the latter group and include Blue Rajah (played by Hank Azaria) whose speciality is throwing forks, Eddie a.k.a. The Shoveler (played by William H. Macy) that uses huge shovel as his secret weapon and Roy a.k.a. Mr. Furious (played by Ben Stiller) whose only superpower is getting really angry. Nobody – police, criminals, friends and relatives – doesn’t take the trio seriously until specific set of circumstances make them deal with the future of Champion City. Captain Amazing became so successful in eradicating crime from the city that the public and, more importantly, rich sponsors, lost interest. So, in order to make himself relevant again, he arranges that his former nemesis, criminal genius Casanova Frankenstein (played by Geoffrey Rush) gets released from mental hospital. This plan spectacularly backfires when Casanova Frankenstein captures Captain Amazing and starts working on a demonic plan to destroy the city with his secret weapon. Upon learning this, Mr. Furious and his friends decide to set Captain Amazing free and decide to fill their ranks with Spleen (played by Paul Reubens), whose speciality is flatulence; Invisible Boy (played by Kel Mitchel), superhero who could become invisible when nobody is looking; and Carol a.k.a. The Bowler (played by Janeane Garofalo) who carries a huge bowl. With the help of mysterious spiritual advisor The Sphinx (played by Wes Studi) the group prepares for showdown with Casanova Frankenstein and his henchmen.

Only a year or two after Mystery Men, megahits like X-Men and Spider-Man turned superhero films into Hollywood’s cash cow and by 2010s superheroes became part of popular culture in a way that would make them ideal for spoofing. In 1999, however, superheroes were known mainly to relatively small fraction of audience – comic book geeks that, unlike broader public, could understand what this film was trying to parody. Unsurprisingly, Mystery Men, which had very high budget of 68 million US$, bombed at the box office and critics weren’t enthusiastic either. Much of the blame for that should go to Kinka Usher, director for whom this relatively ambitious project represented the feature debut. Usher, who had built career directing commercials, didn’t know how to handle new format and was too much in love with special effects and “cool” shots at the expense of proper plot and characters. Script by Neil Cuthbert didn’t help either by watering down very dark and subversive content of the original comic books. What ultimately made Mystery Men watchable was the cast, made almost exclusively of character actors and those who are difficult to describe as “proper” Hollywood stars. Mystery Men works as an ensemble piece and each of the cast members works very well trying to make their outrageous characters as memorable as possible. Their work is especially effective in couple of gags, some of which so funny that they can endanger lives of people with certain health conditions. Usher also at times tried to parody Joel Schumacher and his atrocious work in Batman & Robin. The effort itself is such that Mystery Men, despite its flaws, deserves more than a passing grade.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

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