Movie Log: Mystery Men

I managed to avoid watching the only movie made from a Bob Burden creation for eight years, but I finally gave in and saw it this weekend. Mystery Men isn't as Burden-esque as it should have been, but it's not as bad as I was afraid it was. It's a dumb late-'90s superhero movie, with a bit too much of a debt to Batman Forever (especially in the production design and swooshy camera moves), but it's entertaining enough on its own.

Well, I might not be quite hard enough on it: if it had no connection with Burden, it would have been a decent dumb superhero movie, but, given what it should have been, it's a real disappointment. The biggest difference: Burden's Mystery Men aren't losers, or bad at what they do -- they're loud-mouthed working-class superheroes, who protect the grimy old industrial towns. Oh, and Burden's Mystery Men use guns a lot -- it's the villains who use bizarre not-always-lethal devices. (Well, except for Screwball, of course.) This movie manages to get the names right and everything else wrong; everything that could have made this distinctive and interesting is missing.

I think I'd only recommend this to people who haven't read Bob Burden's great comics...and, even then, I'd recommend Burden above this thing any day of the week.