Director Kinka Usher
Released 1999
Plot A group of inept wannabe superheroes are forced to up their game and save the city when supervillain Casanova Frankenstein plots to destroy it and his hero nemesis, Captain Amazing.
Best on Film Rating ★★★★ FIVER
Well would you look at that line-up: Stiller, Azaria, Macy, Rush, Izzard... this one's got to be good, right?
Right.
Yes, I'm aware that it was made a whooping twelve years ago, but there has to be a reason that this film is widely regarded to be a cult classic, and is repeatedly watched and enjoyed the world over even today. There are several reasons actually.
Firstly, well, the cast. I would even go so far as to say that this may be my dream cast. Although I've never actually heard of Usher as a director (anyone recommend anything this chap has done since?) he seems to know his stuff judging from this, for he stuck to the First Law of Directing Americans in Comedy: play it straight. Forget the razamatazz and Brechtian audience nudge-nudge wink-wink, what makes this work is the fact that the crazy downright loopy characters are offered to us totally deadpan.
That isn't to say that the cast don't look like they had a jolly good time making this (which always enhances a pic I reckon). For this is what they had to portray: Mr Furious (Stiller), with the power of rage; The Shoveller (Macy), who shovels really well; Blue Raja (Azaria), whose power is to throw cutlery at people.
And this is to name but a few - amid the rest of this motley crew of wannabes there's a chap who has incredible flatulence, a lad with invisibility but only when no-one's looking, and a gal who has a possessed bowling ball. Oh and I mustn't forget Casanova Frankenstein (Rush), our resident supervillain, who is heavily into 1970s disco and fights with his sharpened fingernails. Ding ding, everyone off, we've arrived at the funny farm.
And yet it works! Admittedly it all could have gone horribly wrong - can you imagine?!- but let me be the first to reassure you that you won't need to start any hardcore medication as a direct result of seeing this flick.
I mentioned earlier that there are other reasons this now has cult status: another is the surprisingly good special effects. Please bear in mind if you will that this was released the same year as The Matrix, oh ye of bendy slo-mo bodies and bendier spoons. Most of the effects for that were invented especially for it. Cut back to Mystery Men in the same year, to the follow-shots of Casanova Frankenstein in his car in the totally computer animated world of Champion City. Nay bad. And I seriously doubt this lot had anywhere near the budget of the Reeves-fest.
So, overall then, I like this movie. I have it on DVD, I re-watch when in the mood. It's hardly going to win any Oscars, but then I believe if it did it would lose its charm. This is a film people still haven't heard of until it's recommended to them by a friend. I firmly believe that any film that only needs word of mouth as publicity has to be pretty good. So, if you're having a film night anytime soon, try and track this down, ask around, see if anyone you know has it or has seen it. You may be pleasantly surprised.
Inevitably, my closing thought has to be: if you could be an "average joe" superhero, what would your power be? Naturally, mine is the power of confusion. Wherever I go, whatever I do, I confuse people. What can I say, it's a gift. Call it what you will.
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