cross-posted from: feddit.uk/post/15735604
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.
harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 months ago
This is one of two movies that I force others to watch when I get to pick. My other one is GalaxyQuest.
HoustonHenry@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Another three I throw around are Oh, Brother where Art Thou?, Secondhand Lions, and Big Fish
Flying_Hellfish@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Ain’t this place a geographical oddity, 2 weeks from everywhere
Emperor@feddit.uk 3 months ago
Doing the Lord’s work.
01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 3 months ago
Great choices!