Paul Reubens Is A Stinky Superhero In This Forgotten Sci-Fi Comedy
Paul Reubens sadly passed recently, and it has been inspiring a lot of people to revisit some of his best projects. Pee-Wee’s Big Aventure and the Pee-Wee’s Playhouse series should obviously be on anyone’s Reubens watch list but don’t forget some of the more underrated gems like 1999’s Mystery Men. This offbeat superhero comedy featured Reubens on a team of amateur vigilantes and is currently available to stream on Peacock.
While Paul Reubens has a smaller role, he still has that big, hilarious presence he always brings to the table as a character called Spleen, who has the power to make people faint with his flatulence.
Mystery Men was directed by Kinka Usher with a screenplay by Neil Cuthbert that was loosely based on the Flaming Carrot Comics by Bob Burden. Paul Reubens is featured in a star-studded ensemble cast that also includes Hank Azaria, Claire Forlani, Janeane Garofalo, Eddie Izzard, Greg Kinnear, William H. Macy, Kel Mitchell, Lena Olin, Geoffrey Rush, Ben Stiller, Wes Studi, and Tom Waits.
The film follows a group of amateur vigilante superheroes with thoroughly unimpressive superpowers who must save Champion City when a criminal mastermind captures the city’s actual superhero.
While Paul Reubens has a smaller role, he still has that big, hilarious presence he always brings to the table as a character called Spleen, who has the power to make people faint with his flatulence. The central superhero trio of the film is made up of Hank Azaria’s Blue Raja, who can throw forks with amazing accuracy, William H. Macey’s Shoveler, who has a shovel for a weapon, and Ben Stiller’s Mr. Furious, whose power is “his rage.”
While the concept of the film is pretty hilarious, the cast is stacked, and the film was well-received by critics, it was actually a box office bomb.
Reubens’ Spleen eventually joins the squad along with Janeane Garofalo’s The Bowler, who has a crystal bowling ball with the skull of her dead father inside, and Kel Mitchell’s Invisible Boy, who can only become invisible if no one is looking at him.
Along with Paul Reubens and the rest of the main cast, Geoffrey Rush puts in a fun villain performance in Mystery Men as Casanova Frankenstein, and Greg Kinnear’s Captain Amazing is pretty good too. While the concept of the film is pretty hilarious, the cast is stacked, and the film was well-received by critics, it was actually a box office bomb. It pulled in around $33.4 million at the global box office, which was quite a bit under its $68 million production budget.
While you would think that having a solid cast that included reliable comedic geniuses like Ben Stiller and Paul Reubens would have led to a better box office haul for Mystery Men, it’s entirely possible that the release timing was just a bit off.
Lampooning superhero movies is a great idea, but at the time, the biggest popular superhero films were Keaton and Burton’s Batman films and the Richard Donner Superman films. While these films were undoubtedly popular, they didn’t quite kick off the level of superhero craze we have today.
Not too many years after Paul Reubens’ Mystery Men released, we would see Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man and Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, and the superhero craze we have now with the MCU and DCU was slowly starting to form. Amongst that craze, we got great superhero comedies/satires with films like Kick-Ass and Megamind, which were able to capitalize a little more on the films of the moment.
It wouldn’t be hard to see a film like Mystery Men getting a lot more interest in the current film and TV climate, where superhero oversaturation is at an all-time high.
Modern Superhero Satire
In fact, we’re seeing films and TV shows like The Boys and Invincible, which subvert many of the expectations and tropes of superhero media, become extremely popular in their own right. If anything, now is a great time to check out Paul Reubens and the rest of the cast in Mystery Men, especially if you’re tired of the typical blockbuster superhero fare. It would be a good palate cleanser before seeing your third or fourth Marvel or DC film or TV show for the year.
Most importantly, as mentioned, it’s also a great way to see Paul Reubens doing what he did best, which is bringing to life a goofy and fun character and perfectly complementing the rest of the cast with his comedic talents. To that end, make sure to add some of Reubens’ other more underrated comedic performances to your watch list, such as his role in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie or his hilarious appearance in 30 Rock. In the meantime, you can stream Mystery Men today on Peacock.
