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Mystery Men
This 1999 film is a comedic twist on comic book superheroes. When Champion City's greatest superhero disappears, the fight against evil is left in the hands of a group of second-string superhero "wannabees'.
Directed by Kinka Usher . Written by Neil Cuthbert . Based on characters created by Bob Burden .
Dialogue
- Vic the publicist: I think right now we should focus on the positive. Tonight was good.
- Captain Amazing: Yeah - you think so? 'Cause I was worried it was, um, I don't know... PATHETIC! "Amazing triumphs at a nursing home"? That's great copy, Vic.
- Vic: Look, I'm a publicist, not a magicican. You want big news, you have to have big fights. A superhero needs a supervillain - and thanks to you, we've got none left.
- Captain Amazing: Then get... the... Death Man!
- Vic: Death Man is dead.
- Captain Amazing: Okay - Father Doom.
- Vic: Life without parole. Apocalypta's doing fifty years. Armagezzmo's in exile. Baron von Chaos got the chair --
- Captain Amazing: Really?
- Vic: Casanova Frankenstein is locked up in a nut-house.
- Captain Amazing: Casanova Frankenstein - now there was a supervillain! You know, he just... he's got those eyes, you know? I can't do it, but... and that voice - such pure evil! The battles we used to have - extraordinary!
- Vic: "Used to." That's the problem, Captain. "Used to."
- Mr. Furious: Maybe if you didn't smack me in the face with a shovel every time we went out, we'd have a few more victories to brag about.
- Shoveler: All right now, I'm sorry about that. I just have a tendency to lose my concentration when I've got a salad fork stuck in my rear end.
- Blue Raja: Oh, oh - I get it! So your shovel in his face is my fault?
- Shoveler: You threw a spoon at the guy, Jeff.
- Mr. Furious: Yeah, what was up with that?
- Blue Raja: I-I, I'm embarrassed about that. I thought it was a fork.
- Shoveler: You're the master of cutlery. You couldn't throw a knife sometimes when someone's trying to kill me?
- Blue Raja: No, I can't! You couldn't, ah, use a rake sometimes?
- Shoveler: No. I'm the Shoveler.
- Blue Raja: Well, I'm the Blue Raja. I'm not Stab Man, I'm not Knifey Boy - I'm the Blue Raja.
- Mr. Furious: Lance Hunt is Captain Amazing.
- Blue Raja: Oh, here we go.
- Shoveler: Oh, don't start that again! Lance Hunt wears glasses. Captain Amazing doesn't wear glasses.
- Mr. Furious: He takes them off when he transforms.
- Shoveler: That doesn't make any sense. He wouldn't be able to see!
- Mr. Furious: Do you see what I see?
- Shoveler: It's Tony C!
- Blue Raja: And Tony P, leader of the Disco Boys! But what, pray tell, would he be doing back in town?
- Mr. Furious: Maybe it's time to do some following to find out.
- Casanova Frankenstein: Ah, the old Disco Room - just as I left it.
- Tony P: You been locked up for twenty years, Casanova. A lot of things have changed since then.
- Casanova Frankenstein: It must have been hard for you, Tony, the way times and styles have changed... hearing the people say that disco is dead..."
- Tony P: Disco is not dead! Disco is LIFE!
- Casanova Frankenstein: Yes, Tony - that is the passion I remember! Stick with me, Tony, and you will dance again... when I rule this town.
- Casanova Frankenstein: Captain Amazing - what a surprise.
- Captain Amazing: Really? I'm not so sure about that. Your first night of freedom and you blow up the asylum - interesting choice. I knew you couldn't change.
- Casanova: I knew you'd know that.
- Captain Amazing: Oh, I know. And I knew you'd know I'd know you knew.
- Casanova: But I didn't. I only knew that you'd know that I knew. Did you know that?
- Captain Amazing: Of course.
- Captain Amazing: We've always been each other's greatest nemesises... uh, nemesee... wh-what's the plural on that?
- Casanova Frankenstein: Nemeses.
- Captain Amazing: Whatever. You're going to prison for life this time, Casanova. You see, here in Champion City we still do a fairly brisk trade... in justice.
- Casanova: I thought it was all about publicity and keeping your sponsors happy.
- Captain Amazing: See, it's that kind of cynicism that I truly feel is starting to poison society.
- Captain Amazing: Lookee here - a multi-frequency radio detonator! You really should be more careful when discarding incriminating evidence.
- Casanova Frankenstein: Oh, no, no, no, no. This is an amusing little gizmo. It's really quite cool.
- Captain Amazing: Yeah? What is it? [the gizmo emits a spurt of vapor into his face] Yuck!
- Casanova: It's a chloroform-deploying enticement snare.
- Captain Amazing: Aw, DANG! [he collapses]
- Caasanova: Poor Lancie - you really are so predictable.
- Tony P: What do we got here?
- Tony C: I think they're supposed to be jive superheroes.
- Tony P: Well, they made a big mistake coming to Casanova's place. [he draws a gun; the heroes snicker.] What's so funny?
- Mr. Furious: That's it? That's your power? You have guns? Couldn't you be a little more creative than that?
- Blue Raja: Pardon the impertinence, guv'nor, but what the devil does a pistol have to do with disco?
- Mr. Furious: Weak.
- Blue Raja: At best. [more Disco Boys arrive, armed with a variety of blunt instruments.]
- Shoveler: Check out the guy with the pipe. What are you - the Disco Plumber?
- Blue Raja: There's no theme at all here, mates!
- Captain Amazing: Listen, I really think we need to talk about your plans here.
- Casanova Frankenstein: You know my plans, Lancie. Tomorrow night I'm going to kill you.
- Captain Amazing: Right - that's the part that really doesn't work for me.
- [The Shoveler's wife finds superhero tryouts being conducted in her back yard]
- Lucille: Oh, I don't deserve this!
- Shoveler: I know.
- Lucille: A lot of other men I could have married, Eddie. Still are.
- Shoveler: I understand.
- Lucille: If one person vomits in my pool, I'm divorcing you.
- Shoveler: That's fair.
- Lucille: Mm-hmm. Come on, kids!
- Bowler: Have you ever heard of Carmine the Bowler?
- Shoveler: Have we ever heard --
- Blue Raja: Cor blimey, miss, don't tell us you're the Bowler's daughter!
- Mr. Furious: I seem to remember there being a little controversy around his death.
- Bowler: That's right. The police said it was an accident. He'd come home late one night and fell down an elevator shaft. Onto some bullets.
- Blue Raja: You know, I've always suspected a bit of foul play.
- Bowler: As have I.
- Bowler: So you're a British man who converted to Islam, sort of like Cat Stevens?
- Blue Raja: No. Until the early part of this century, India was in fact part of the British Empire, whose government there was called the British Raj after the Hindi word for "sovereignty". Furthermore --
- Bowler: Wait - so sorry. [to her bowling ball] What? DAD! No, he's not a commie, nor a fruit. [to the Blue Raja] Sorry - his ignorance embarrassess me.
- Blue Raja: Sorry, but am I to understand that you've inserted your father's skull inside of that... ball for bowling?
- Bowler: No. The guy at the pro shop did it.
- Tony P: You guys never learn, do you?
- Blue Raja: Apparently we don't - ass!
- Invisible Boy: So what's the name of this team? How about the Super Squad?
- [Tony P and Tony C appear with gun-toting Disco Boys]
- Tony P: How about the Six Dead Guys in Their Stupid Costumes? No, no, no - the Magnificent Dead Guys. How about that?
- Tony C: How about the Legendary Superfreaks?
- Tony P: Way too positive. They totalled our car.
- [As a training exercise, Mr. Furious is trying to balance a small hammer on his head]
- Mr. Furious: Why am I doing this again?
- Sphinx: When you can balance a tack hammer on your head, you will head off your foes with a balanced attack.
- Mr. Furious: And why am I wearing the watermelon on my feet?
- Sphinx: I don't remember telling you to do that.
- Sphinx: Your temper is very quick, my friend. But until you learn to master your rage --
- Mr. Furious: Your rage will become your master? That's what you were gonna say, right? Right?
- Sphinx: Not necessarily.
- Shoveler: Doctor, you are a genius.
- Dr. Heller: That's what the card says.
- Blue Raja: Sphinx, what do we do?
- Sphinx: Sometimes, the true hero is the one with the courage to run away.
- Bowler: I like the way this man thinks!
- Invisible Boy: Let's run.
- Shoveler: We can't run.
- Bowler: Oh, yes! Oh, yes - it's been established that we can run.
- Invisible Boy: But I don't want to get frakulated!
- the Bowler: Psycho-frakulated.
- Invisible Boy: We still get frakulated!
- [The Blue Raja's mom walks in on him, in full costume, rummaging through her silverware drawer]
- Mom: Jeffrey, what are you doing?
- Blue Raja: I'm, uh, I'm just... I... I... [shifts to British accent] I'm a superhero, mother.
- Mom: A superhero?
- Blue Raja: An effete British superhero, to be precise. The Blue Raja is my name. I am pilfering your silverware because - I hurl it. I hurl it with a deadly accuracy - and yes, I know I don't wear much blue and I speak in a British accent, but if you know your history it really does make perfect sense.
- Blue Raja: I better get going. I've got a city to save.
- Mom: Jeffrey - do the accent.
- Blue Raja: Uh, well... [shifts to British accent] Well, I'd love to stay and chit-chat, Mother,but I fear I must away with me - our metropolis is in the clutches of madmen!
- Mom: Jeff?
- Blue Raja: Yeah?
- Mom: Cheerio.
- Blue Raja: Thanks, Mom.
- Invisible Boy: So - this is basically a huge electromagnet.
- Dr. Heller: Well, actually, it's an electro-nuclear-magnet. It's the next inevitable phase.
- [The other heroes try to help Mr. Furious regain his anger-feuled super powers.]
- Shoveler: Come on, somebody do something! We need him!
- Bowler: Okay, let's do this. You're a very furious man. Do you understand that?
- Mr. Furious: No.
- Bowler: No? Well, you've got a lot to be furious about, and I'll tell you why. You're - not well-liked. You're, uh, abrasive and off-putting. You try to say pithy things, but your wit is a hindrance... so therefore nothing is provacative, it's just mixed metaphors. Now doesn't that make you angry? Does it infuriate you?
- Mr. Furious: No.
- Bowler: Well, it should! Are you angry? Come ON, man!
- Shoveler: Your penmanship is atrocious!
- Sphinx: You dress in the manner of a male prostitute.
Mr. Furious
- "Don't mess with the volcano, my man, 'cause I will go Pompeii on your... butt."
- "I will keep dreaming! I will keep dreaming, my friend! And when I wake up you better hope, you better hope you're... asleep!"
- "Okay, let's all be little automaton droids and believe everything we hear on TV."
- "Well, I am a ticking time bomb of fury."
- "I guess tonight the lone wolf hunts... alone."
- "Ooh - Mama Pajama! What kind of crazy-man blows up a crazy-house?"
- "In my opinion, which used to matter around here, we shouldn't be flinging new memberships at every guy who puts together a pair of matching gloves and boots."
- "Do yourself a favor and don't punch my clock 'cause I'm a Pantera's box you do not wanna open!"
- "I don't need a compass to know which way the wind shines!"
- "I guess from now on I ride in a wolfpack of one."
- "Do you think there's a really angry way I could say I'm sorry?"
- "I just wanted to say that I had a really great time tonight, and you were really nice to me, and I would love to, uh, take you out some time. But if I don't call you I just want you to know that it's because I'm dead."
- "I must have ripped the Q section out of my dictionary, 'cause I don't know the meaning of the word 'quit'!"
The Shoveler
- "Lucille, God gave me a gift. I shovel well. I shovel very well."
- "You guys just be sure to jump in when the action starts. You do your share, we'll keep you around."
- "There's no use waiting for the cavalry, because as of this moment, the cavalry is us."
- "We're all in over our heads and we know it. But if we take on this fight, those of us who survive it will forever after show our scars with pride and say, 'That's right! I was there! I fought the good fight!'"
- "So what do you say? Do we all gather together and kick some Casanova butt... or do I eat this sandwich?"
- "We've got a blind date with Destiny. And it looks like she's ordered the lobster."
- "We struck down evil with the mighty sword of teamwork and the hammer of not-bickering."
The Blue Raja
- "Allow me to introduce myself: the Blue Raja, Master of Silverware. Forks a speciality."
- "He is rather ripping, isn't he? With the spinning and the hurting and the kicking..."
- "Well, well, well - if it isn't our old friends the Red-Eyes. Good evening, gentlemen. We weren't expecting to see you again so...spoon!"
- "There aren't any evil trios, are there? No - they all have to travel in gangs like little babies."
- "The point is, your boy's a Limey fork-flinger, mother. Hard cheese to swallow, I know, but there it is."
- "I knew I should have brought my large pie-server."
Invisible Boy
- "All my life I've been ignored by people, and finally, after years of being overlooked, I found I have the power to disappear."
- "Hey, Dad - I'm going to my room with three strange men."
- "When you go invisible... you can feel it."
- "Come on - haven't you guys ever been a kid? Haven't you guys ever... had a dream?"
- "It's cool, isn't it? It goes right up to the point of being, like, confusing."
- "I am transparent. I am like the window. I am see-through. I'm like Saran Wrap."
The Spleen
- "It all started when I was just thirteen years of age. One day while walking with some friends I accidentally cut the cheese. Well, in my adolescent awkwardness, I blamed it on an old gypsy woman who happened to be passing by. Big mistake! The gypsy woman placed a curse upon my head. Because I had smelt it, she decreed that I would forevermore be - he who dealt it!"
- "Why are you guys always dissing me? I'm a superhero too, you know! I have powers."
- "If you want to know what my power is, pull my finger."
- "This is weird in here. It's scary and weird."
- "It's the FUNKYSKUNKULATOR!"
The Bowler
- "I guess I'll just have to take my ball and go home."
- "Here comes Daddy!"
- "Do you wannna go back in the bag? Is that how we're gonna play this?"
- "Oh, there's another chicken. Crazy chicken world."
- "How delightfully eccentric - while simultaneously being a complete waste of our time!"
- "See, that's why, in general, a mad scientist is less desirable than a garden-variety scientist."
- "Maybe you should put some shorts on or something if you want to keep fighting evil today."
- "Now , there's a wedgie she won't soon forget."
The Sphinx
- "You must be like the wolf pack - not like the six-pack."
- "You must lash out with every limb, like the octopus who plays the drums."
- "Learn to hide your strikes from your opponent and you'll more easily strike his hide."
- "He who questions training only trains himself at asking questions."
- "Casanova will have many weapons. To defeat him we will need to have more than forks and flatulence."
- "Do not go there, my son! When you doubt your powers, you give power to your doubts."
- "We are number one! All others are number two, or lower."
Casanova Frankenstein
- "Hello, Champion City. Daddy... is home!"
- "When the clock strikes twelve... cuckoo, cuckoo... you will be dead. And my city will be given a new state of mind."
- "Tonight I am going to do to Champion City what I have done to its greatest superhero - und there will still be time to go up, get down... und boogie!"
- "I have created a beautiful machine that is going to encourage our fellow citizens to share my vision of the future! Can you dig it?"
- "A fish-fork is no match for my machine!"
- "It is so easy to get the better of people when they care about each other - which is why evil will always have the edge."
Doctor Heller
- "No, no. I don't live here. I'm just here for the ladies." (at a nursing home)
- "I don't make anything that's deadly."
- "Totally nonlethal, but totally effective."
- "That's a high-temperature fabric adhesive liquid projector, based on simple dry-cleaning technology. You aim that at a guy, and I'll tell you something: his clothes get so tight he can't even breathe."
- "I can trick that out with a clam-shell holster. It comes with a leather carrying case. It's got a wadcutter and a full warranty."
- "It's a psycho-frakulator! It creates a-a cloud of radically fluctuating deviant chaotrons, which penetrate the synaptic relays. It's concantenated with a-a synchronous transport switch that creates a virtual tributary! It's focused onto a biobolic reflector and what happens is, is that hallucinations become reality... and the brain is literally fried from within."
- "Wait - you have a Herkimer battle jitney? That's the finest nonlethal military vehicle ever made!"
- "Well, actually, it's an electro-nuclear-magnet. It's the next inevitable phase."
Others
- "You keep dreaming... wanna-be!" ~ Officer Maguire
- "You know, tooth decay and gingivitis can be a crime. That's why I use Mighty Whitey toothpaste. Because I want my teeth to look - Amazing!" ~ Captain Amazing in TV commercial
- "Baby, you shovel better than any man I've ever known... but that does not make you a superhero. You're a good husband, and a good father. Nothing more." ~ Lucille (Mrs. Shoveler)
- "I believe in you, Daddy." ~ Roland (Shoveler's son)
- "I'm the guy that gave your daddy the shaft!" ~ Eddie P (to the Bowler)
- "P.M.S. Avenger. I only work four days a month. Is there a problem with that?" ~ P.M.S. Avenger
- "Okay, okay - the Six Very Nearly Dead Guys With a Temporary Reprieve. That's it - that's your name!" ~ Tony P
- "Kill ya later - super-losers!" ~ Tony P
- "This contraption is, in fact, a weapon of mass destruction. Casanova plans to turn it against the city at midnight." ~ Captain Amazing
- "Flip the switch, lady. Don't stare at me, lift your left arm and flip it, you moron! You're a MORON! You're a MORON!" ~ Captain Amazing
- "These belonged to your great-great grandmother. I was saving them for your wedding day, but from the looks of it, that day... it's probably a long way off." ~ Blue Raja's mother
- "Just... be... Roy. Okay?" ~ Monica
- "Dig this, Shovel Man!" ~ Tony C
Cast
- Ben Stiller - Mr. Furious
- William H. Macy - the Shoveler
- Hank Azaria - the Blue Raja
- Janeane Garofolo - the Bowler
- Wes Studi - the Sphinx
- Kel Mitchell - Invisible Boy
- Paul Reubens - the Spleen
- Greg Kinnear - Captain Amazing / Lance Hunt
- Geoffrey Rush - Casanova Frankenstein
- Tom Waits - Dr. Heller
- Claire Forlani - Monica
- Eddie Izzard - Tony P
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