You must lash out with every limb, like the octopus who plays the drums.
A review by Mike Shea Movie Rating: ( * * * * · ) DVD Rating: ( * * * * * )
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For some reason I wasn't on this movie until recently. But a couple of friends both recommended it to me so I thought it would be worth a rental. It certainly is. Mystery Men has all the elements that make REAL comic books so damn good. It gives you a view of the heroes in all elements of their lives. Instead of being just a hero we see that they have wives and children, mothers, and girlfriends. We see how much like real folks they are. We see their weaknesses and their strengths as real people. The film is totally outlandish and nuts like a mix of Blade Runner and Batman. Our bad guy and his henchmen are straight out of a 70s cop show like . The main hero of the film, Captain Amazing is on the outs. He has beaten all the bad guys so much that his commercial sponsors are yanking their cash and their logo off of his suit. The REAL heroes are only just starting to grow and become a gang of hard ass crime fighters. It really reminded me of an old graphic novel I read about 10 years ago called The Watchmen. It had the same kind of scenario which is set about 30 years after the original popularity of the heroes and deals with their midlife crisis'. There is an all star cast to this flick with Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Paul Reubens (Heh HEH!), and William H. Macy (of ER and Boogie Nights). All do wonderful jobs in their crazy roles. My only real beef (so to speak) with this movie was the Spleen. They should have been able to do better than that. I am not a fan of fart jokes in movies at all anyway, I pretty much got over that when I was ten, but this is even more than most. The DVD has a wonderfully dark 16x9 enhanced 1.85 to 1 aspect ratio and a nice full Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. There are a bunch of deleted scenes and a directors commentary also included. Aside from the antics of the Spleen, I have to give this one a good thumbs up. It is a lot of fun and the DVD is a great representation.