I’ve been a fan of Ben Stiller since The Ben Stiller show on MTV, and it’s a trip to see that Zoolander is now being hailed as a legendary comedy.
Ben’s created a lot of great characters, it’s also great he insists his father Jerry be in all of his movies, and he’s also got a fantastic little obscure film that may finally be getting its due on Blu-ray.
As you may recall, Mystery Men hit theaters in the summer of 1999, but it was bulldozed by a little movie called The Sixth Sense. It received good notices, and is of course what you’d call a “cult film” today.
A screenwriter who wrote a legendary cult film himself once joked to me that when you make a cult film, the cult consists of people who don’t pay to go see a movie. But again, Mystery Men may have another chance soon, thanks to Blu-ray.
Mystery Men was created by Bob Burden, and co-produced by Dark Horse Comics publisher Michael Richardson, who also managed to turn Tank Girl and The Mask into films.
Mystery Men stars Stiller, Hank Azaria, Paul Reubens (aka Pee Wee Herman), William H. Macy, and Geoffrey Rush, among many others in a wonderfully bizarre cast.
As Macy, who has certainly played his share of schlubs, explained in a behind the scenes special, “It’s about loser superheroes, that’s all you have to say and people go, ‘Oh, I can’t wait to see that!” Reubens also added, “It’s about misfits, people who really don’t fit, but they have something to offer.”
So yeah, the Mystery Men aren’t as dashing or amazing as Batman or Spider-Man, but it should be especially fun to go back and see the film today now that comic book movies are better than ever.
Movieline calls it “The Anti-Dark Knight Rises,” as well as “an anomalously charming and amiably goofy superhero film.” With today’s superhero culture, it should be a lot of fun and very refreshing to see much different heroes than the usual Marvel and DC boys.
