Well here's Melvyn the Monster who whilst searching for some good grub to munch on stumbled across MYSTERY MEN, but... didn't have near the fun that Moriarty or Segue Zagnut had. Just a tiny reminder, this is a test screening and the film will undoubtedly go through some changes between now and it's August release date. Personally I'm still pulling for IRON GIANT to be moved up to mid-July. But.... well, we'll see.
I beg to differ with the other two reviews for this sophomoric and ponderous exercise in mediocrity. Honestly, it was one of the biggest wastes of talent(Geoffrey Rush, Bill Macy, Ben Stiller, Janene Garofolo,etc..) and money (reportedly over $70 million) in recent memory.
There is absolutely no story here. It makes you wonder if they actually had a script to go with the silly concept. Once you get past the introduction of each of the characters and their "funny" super powers --Pee Wee Herman farts, Hank Azaria throws forks, Ben Stiller gets angry, and Bill Macy hits people with a shovel--there is no other reason to watch the rest of this movie. These jokes are all funny once. They are not enough to sustain a two hour film. The story concerns these super-heroes as they prepare to do battle with the evil Cassanova Frankenstein(Geoffry Rush). This takes up about an hour and 45 minutes of the film. The final 15 minutes are, of course, the absurdly unfunny showdown between our heroes and Cassanova.
The dialogue here is also terrible. It feels like it was lifted from a Saturday morning cartoon. How many laughs can you generate by a character sitting on a fork?
In addition, they have obviously spent a tremendous amount of money on special effects that don't look good and don't fit into the story at all. Why are they pakcing the movie with effects when it is about a bunch of low-tech super-heroes with no real superpowers that merit having an effect. Farting? A shovel? Perhaps the effects have been put in to try and make us forget that the jokes are lame and the story non-existent.
Melvyn the Monster
