A "Quality" Kind of Dumb by Michael Kaplan Bringing comic books to the big screen is a risky proposition. I'll never forget seeing my favorite comic book anti-hero, Howard the Duck, brought to life on opening night at the local multiplex. My level of disappointment roughly equaled the amount of hype that preceded the film's opening. Another case of brilliance reduced to Hollywood schlock. I had far fewer expectations going into Mystery Men, which I guess is one reason I liked it so much. The film is another comic book done in live action. The characters are a group of misfit, pathetic superheroes who get clobbered consistently. The extreme goofiness of their gimmicks--The Shoveler (William H. Macy) wields a shovel; The Blue Raj (Hank Azaria) tosses silverware, but never knives, at his foes; Mr. Furious (Ben Stiller) simply gets really, really mad--is good for many laughs. Then there's The Spleen. The Spleen is played by Paul Reubens, in his finest role I've seen since Pee Wee's Big Adventure. There are Pee Wee-esque touches to the new character, though his disgusting and lascivious nature makes him far less lovable than Pee Wee. Still, it's hard not to laugh whenever Spleen is on screen. I won't go into details of his superpower; let it suffice to say that he targets his enemies' sense of smell. The group of superlosers teams up with The Invisible Boy (Kel Mitchell) and The Bowler (Jeneane Garofalo, who's been in many movies I haven't seen), and sets out to save the world from evil. They get some wacky weaponry from the great Tom Waits, who plays an inventor living in an abandoned amusement park. Too bad Waits isn't given much of a role to work with. There's a real comic-book feel to the movie, helped in part by plenty of gratuitous extreme close-ups. It's not exactly high art, and it's about 20 minutes too long, but I found myself laughing several times, which is more than I can say about the recent Austin Powers film. On the other hand, I saw Mystery Men in a packed house, and almost no one else seemed to be laughing. Maybe I'm the only one in the world who thinks it's worth eight bucks, but I doubt it.

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