Mystery Men is a parody of superhero movies. If the current plethora of serious movies are not your cup of tea, then Mystery Men might be what you need.Of the entire cast, The Shoveler, the Bowler and Blue Raja were the most memorable characters. In particular, I liked seeing the Bowler interact with her father via the bowling bowl, plus some of her lines were hilarious to listen to. 'No, the guy at the pro-shop did it.' Heck, a lot of the dialogue in the movie had me laughing. It's easily one of Mystery Men's strong points.However, the fight scenes could have been better. 'The superheroes with lame powers' premise should have been played up to ridiculous and gut-busting levels by featuring over-the-top fight sequences with said powers. They had the right idea with the Disco Boys and their interactions with the protagonists, but ultimately, I feel the opportunity for laughs was squandered with the somewhat underwhelming fights, especially the one between Mr. Furious and Casanova Frankenstein.And speaking of him, despite having a cool name, Casanova Frankenstein doesn't really do anything memorable aside from keeping Captain Amazing hostage. I mean, he's got some funny lines of dialogue, but I also wanted to see him do more villainous things with a helping of comedy thrown in. I kind of wish he had fought the Mystery Men at least once before the climax at the mansion to show the viewer how threatening he can be. Instead, we mostly see him acting kooky with other villains. I think they could have made him kooky AND powerful, like with actually threatening powers. It would have been pretty awesome to see the Mystery Men defeat a super-villain despite lacking the advantage of, well, real superpowers.I give it a 5.5/10. The comedy is the main attraction here, and it mostly delivers. The two hour runtime can feel like overkill, but MM deserves be viewed at least once.

I am spinal injuredI saw this when I was younger and thought it was incredibly stupid. I thought that over time I had become more accepting of slapstick films and gave it another try..... No, I was right the first time. Horrible. It has a couple of clever lines but immediately in the first scene of the film you start to wonder if the writer(s) were still in middle school. The jokes are often random and go off on a tangent. I suffered through it hoping it might end with at least one good laugh. I felt so bad for leaving this on while my wife was in the room I immediately cooked her dinner and dessert and admitted that it was truly one of the most painful films i've ever seen (up there with catwoman i'd say). On the upside if you like movies like "dude, wheres my car" and "spy kids", then you'll love this heaping pile of dung.

Mystery Men is one of the few movies that I remember being exceptionally excited about. Although I was not familiar with the Flaming Carrot comics, I remember seeing the huge advertising campaign for this movie and became exceptionally curious.My sister and I went to see this when it was released and I have to admit it is still one of my favorite cinematic experiences ever. I actually expected the Mystery Men to rescue Captain Amazing and let him save the day. Looking back, I realize how terrible that would have been. Captain Amazing was a total ass and solely responsible for every death in the movie. Rather than go such an off route, we got to see a group of people who may not be talented, but have heart and soul unlike any other super heroes. . As corny as it is, this movie reminded me a lot of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies. There was an expected corniness about it, but you still find yourself routing for it.The performances are all amazing. This is William H. Macy's movie. He took the Shoveler from an unsure man lacking direction and made him into the leader of this team. He seems to lack the ability to see the obvious, being at first surprised at the idea of teamwork and then assuming incorrectly that the Sphinx would be a good leader. He becomes the leader when he realizes that they have to be heroes not for themselves, but to protect the people they love and the people they have never met. Ben Stiller, the most hated actor I have ever watched, was actually fun to watch as Mr. Furious. I don't think Geoffrey Rush has ever given a bad performance.I'll never understand why this movie bombed like it did. I love it and will remember it forever.

I'll tell you what the mystery is as far as I am concerned: how a cool, extremely witty, and thoroughly entertaining movie like this one can fail at the box-office when far less worthy films not only make massive profits, but go on to spawn umpteen often inferior sequels. It does little to build my faith in humanity.For me, Mystery Men is two hours of sheer joy, with some incredibly funny lines of dialogue, excellent special effects, imagination to spare, and wonderful characters brought to life by a superb cast, my favourite performances of the whole film being from Wes Studi as The Sphinx, who continually spouts hilarious pearls of wisdom, and Geoffrey Rush as delightfully devious villain Casanova Frankenstein.Oh well, if the general public can't appreciate such a creative, quirky and innovative gem, it's their loss; I guess it'll be up to the select few with far superior taste to keep the flame alive...