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If you ever pinned a towel around your neck and pretended you could fly like Superman, this is your movie.
You see, Captain Amazing has done his job too well. All of the supervillains have been vanquished. So, when his arch-enemy Casanova Frankenstein (Geoffrey Rush) comes up for parole after twenty years in the looney bin, CA's alter ego Lance Hutton arranges for him to be released. Unfortunately, Amazing's ego is no match for Frankenstein's machinations and he ends up strapped to a chair under an infernal machine in the belly of the bad guy's mansion. Will evil prevail? Is Champion City doomed? Not if the Blue Raja (Hank Azaria), The Shoveler (William H. Macy) and Mr. Furious (Ben Stiller) have anything to say about it. These three bumbling wannabes are determined to rescue the city's hero, if they can only get their "superpowers" to work right. Raja throws forks, Shoveler uses garden tools and Furious -- well, he gets furious. Nothing much happens when he does, but, hey, that's not his fault. Deciding they need more help to combat the forces of evil, they recruit three more team members. The Spleen (Paul Reubens) has farts guaranteed to drop a villain at 200 yards. The Bowler (Janeane Garofalo) wants revenge for her father's murder, her weapon of choice a crystal bowling ball with his skull inside. They slip into Frankenstein's castle to rescue Amazing, but a slight misunderstanding leads to their turning him into a charcoal briquet instead. It does seem as though the baddies have won, but the sextet of misfits gets new enthusiasm for their quest when they meet The Sphinx (Wes Studi), a mysterious superguy with eerie mind powers and a whole portfolio full of New Age aphorisms. They obtain special weapons, like a gun that makes clothes shrink, from Dr. A. Heller (Tom Waits), climb into a 1937 armored personnel carrier, and literally crash Casanova Frankenstein's victory celebration. In the end, they save Champion City -- or most of it, anyway. Created by Bob Burden for Dark Horse Comics, Mystery Men is about everybody who ever dreamed of being more than they are. What makes these could-be losers different is their willingness to brave ridicule and disaster to at least try to achieve their goal. They succeed because they just won't quit, no matter how many times they fail.
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