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What is a Bucket Movie? Overlooked, weird and rare films, that for one reason or another fell through the cracks and failed to get a mainstream audience. Cult classics, unknown oddities and the extremely hard to find, finally get the press they deserve here!

Mystery Men (1999) Review

June 15th 2010 18:47
Mystery Men
I took the tag line's advice and Expected the Unexpected, and what I got? I still didn't expect it!



When I say “Bucket Movies” I mean the rare, overlooked, film oddities. I enjoy them because I like seeing what others have missed, I like the weird and celebrate the Bizarre. Most overlooked films have something kinda quirky about them, but a movie like Kinka Usher's 1999 Superhero epic “Mystery Men” is possibly the weirdest, most all out entertaining film oddity I've ever ha the pleasure of setting my eyes on. It's that rare, “Perfect storm” of oddness that I can watch again and again.

The story is about a trios of amateur superheros, who go out night after night to fight crime. Their powers are suspect, perhaps non-existent, but their drive isn't in question. Their sort of like the bush-league heros, a garage band of crime fighters. They always want the big leagues, but never quite make it. When Captain Amazing, the resident big name superhero, makes the mistake of releasing the dangerous super villain Casanova Frankenstein. When Captain Amazing is captured, the mystery men become the only show in town and need to swell their ranks and mount a risky rescue mission.
To start things off weird, “Mystery Men” is based on an underground comic book by the same name. Not just any underground comic, but a spinoff of an underground comic. “Mystery Men” was a team of heroes that teamed up with famous underground hero The Flaming Carrot on occation. Originally Mystery men was going to be directed by Danny DiVito, who would also to play The Shoveler, one of the main characters. Through a series of events only known to Hollywood, the directorial duties wound up in the hands of Kinka Usher, a man most well known for his work in Doritos commercials, and the weirdness only rolls on from there.

The movie has so many cameos, Hollywood in jokes and bizarre trivia that I could write a 1000 page book on it and it would never get boring. It seems that everyone in this movie is either someone who would be a celebrity, or already was some kind of obscure personality. William H Macy had one of his first big roles here, so did Ben Stiller, Jennie Gorafalo, William H. Macy and Clair Fioere , and a pre-pirate Geoffrey Rush as the villain. Big stars played here, but also scads of bit players famous for being bit players. Magician Ricky Jay plays Captain Amazing's agent (Who at one point quips “I'm a publicist not a magician!”) regular of “The Simpsons” Hank Azaria plays superhero The Blue Rajah, Pee Wee Herman himself (Credited as “Paul Rubens”) plays “The Spleen” a superhero who fights crime with flatulence. Nickelodeon's Kel Mitchel of “Keanan and Kel” fame plays the young “Invisible Boy” Comedians Artie Lang and Dane Cook play bit parts, Doug Jones famous body double has a cameo. Popular underground musician Tom Waits fittingly plays a mad scientist and Hip Hop group “the Goodie Mod” play the hip-hop based gang the “Not-so Goodie Mob”. Comedian and cross dresser Eddie Izzard plays the leader of the “Disco Boys” even big time movie director Michael Bay has a cameo as a drunken frat boy . . .and rest assured, even this is not a complete list.
Like New York City, wherever you look in this movie there's something to see. It's a Cult Classic for people who like Cult Classics, and it came along before the comic book movie craze of the 2000's.
Pee-wee herman, Paul Ruebens
Holy Crap, is that Pee Wee Herman?
When I watch “Mystery Men” I realize it wasn't just a big Hollywood film based on an underground comic, it was a movie that maintained the quirky, off the wall feel of a comic book and spoke right to the comic book fan instead of speaking down to them (I'm looking right at you Spider-man). I was sitting in a theater when I saw it, but I might as well have been relaxing on my couch reading a comic with a cream soda in hand. Mystery Men is one of those movies I could safely say will only happen once, there's literally nothing to compare it to. Perhaps that's why it's director, Kinka Usher never directed another film, why not go out on top?

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