Comedy is hard. Knowing this, Hollywood has a bad habit of stocking its comedies with professional comedians. Who better, so the thinking goes, to help bring in the funny? But comedians are not necessarily actors. As such, they fall into an unfortunate habit of playing themselves. That’s the paradox of most comedies, and its a paradox Mystery Men cannot avoid. Its greatest strengths are also the very things that destroy its universe. Its great cast flits about like lost children, playing the Greek Chorus of their own damn story. Based on one of the great indie comics of the 90s, it extracted a perfectly good premise from a source it had no earthly idea how to properly handle. Having gained a cult following in the days since it spectacularly bombed at the box office only means it’s attracted my not-so-tender attentions. If I were Godzilla, cult superhero movies would by my nuclear power stations. So let’s strap on the latex monster costumes and get to stomping this Tokyo, shall we? Continue reading Mystery Men (1999)
As you’ve no doubt guessed by now, my personal political views fall somewhere to the left of Mikhail Bakunin. So, as you’d expect, I experienced quite the nerdgasam back in the year 2000 when (through a convoluted story line tonight’s film rightly jettisons without the slightest nod) Lex Luthor became President of the D.C. Universe’s United States. Finally, I said to no one in particular, given that at the time I had no friends, someone in comics understands the f-ed up mess we’re in.
Of all the U.K. comic book writers ‘ported over during the 1980s, Mark Millar stands as an all-time champion of sorts, never missing a chance to destroy the goodwill he’s managed to build up with his audience. Kick-Ass, the book, is a perfect example of this, as well as everything wrong with modern comics in general and Millar’s comics in particular. A cynical, revisionist nightmare disguised as a superhero story, starring yet another morosely-unsympathetic protagonist who sublimates his own misanthropy, misogyny, and angst by dressing up in a silly costume and beating others bloody.
The day I discovered NOVA’s