In 1999, Ben Stiller, Geoffrey Rush and Janeane Garofalo starred in a satirical comic book adaptation that poked fun at the genre as a whole. Its production was plagued by drama, though, and – when it was finally released – it cratered at the box office. But in an age of James Gunn and ‘The Boys’, is it worth another look, asks Tom Fordy

Perhaps it’s fitting that a film about a ragtag rabble of not-so-superheroes failed to take off at the box office. But, 25 years since its release, the Ben Stiller-starring Mystery Men is worth rescuing from obscurity. That it hasn’t generated the cult following of so many other slightly under-the-radar movies of 1999 – think the cannibal horror movie Ravenous, or the Kirsten Dunst Watergate comedy Dick – feels criminal to the point of super-villainy.

The first and to date last feature film by the TV commercial director Kinka Usher, Mystery Men now seems curiously placed within the history of comic book movies. Released on 6 August 1999 in the US, it spoofed the superheroes that came before it, while anticipating – or preemptively satirising, even – the yet-to-happen superhero boom with ideas as sharp as anything seen in almost two decades of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

  • @CitizenKong
    14•5 months ago

    This movie was so far ahead of it’s time. It’s would have played so much different today with an audience literate in superhero tropes.

    Just compare Captain Amazing to Homelander, they’re basically the same character.