Movie Substrate · Film

Mystery Men (1999)

★ 5.8 · 906 ratings on TMDB

Not your classic superheroes...they're the other guys.

Mystery Men poster★ 5.8

When Champion City's hero Captain Amazing is kidnapped by the recently paroled supervillain Casanova Frankenstein, a trio of average, everyday superheroes -- Mr. Furious, the Shoveler and the Blue Raja -- assemble a new super team to save him.

DirectorKinka Usher
CastBen Stiller, Claire Forlani, Geoffrey Rush, Greg Kinnear, Hank Azaria, Janeane Garofalo
GenresAction, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy
The emergence reading

Mystery Men keeps every mind human — it fights its subject at zero distance. The story fights on E8/E9 of the E0–E14 reality ladder, compressing heroism, corporate, media, incompetence, celebrity.

zero-distanceUSheroismcorporatemediaincompetencecelebrity
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Same rung, same subject

Films fighting at the same level of reality, about the same things.

Superman Returns (2006)E8/E9 · heroism, mediaNatural Born Killers (1994)E8/E9 · celebrity, mediaChicago (2002)E8/E9 · celebrity, mediaTeen Titans Go! To the Movies (2018)E8/E9 · celebrity, mediaGalaxy Quest (1999)E8/E9 · heroism, media101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure (2003)E8/E9 · heroism, media

Same subject, different rung

The same preoccupations examined at another scale — one mind versus a nation.

War, Inc. (2008)E12/E13 · rare rung · corporate, mediaMeet the Spartans (2008)E10/E12 · rare rung · celebrity, mediaThe Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle (2000)E10/E12 · rare rung · celebrity, media

Same people

Shared director or cast.

Along Came Polly (2004)Ben StillerNight at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009)Ben StillerThe Cable Guy (1996)Ben StillerAvatar (2009)Wes StudiPirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)Geoffrey RushFinding Nemo (2003)Geoffrey Rush