So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993)

So much average

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Charlie Mackenzie (Mike Myers) has bad luck with women or just paranoid with bad excuses. He lives in San Francisco and his best friend Tony Giardino (Anthony LaPaglia) is a bad undercover cop. Then he falls for butcher shop owner Harriet (Nancy Travis) who could be too good to be true. His mother reads the tabloids and tells him about Mrs X who kills all her husbands on their honeymoon. With some weird warning signs, Charlie breaks up with her. When somebody confesses to one of the murders, he begs to come back to her. It all comes to a head on their honeymoon.There are some wacky characters and may just be the prelude to the Austin Powers movies. Myers is doing the wacky father that has the similar tone to an old and angry Austin Powers. The parent characters are a load of fun. Phil Hartman is great as the stone faced Alcatraz guide Vicky. Anthony LaPaglia has difficulties with the comedic role. It needs a real comedian to do the job properly. As for the romantic chemistry, Mike Myers feels too childish next to Nancy Travis. They have good friend chemistry but I wouldn't call it sexual chemistry. She's a little too serious of a actress. She is too straight and her character needs more jokes. Again a real comedian would help in this role.

When I first went to watch this movie I was not expecting much as after Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery - actually I don't expect much from a Mike Myers movie. Also with the title and the blurb on the back I saw the movie as being quite predictable - namely a panicky male running around a house trying to escape an insane axe murderer that he has happened to marry.This is not the case. So, I Married an Axe Murderer is actually quite an entertaining movie. The movie focuses on the relationship between Mike Myer's character, who happens to have a wild imagination and believes that all of the women that he has had a relationship with has some sinister secret and because of this he must break up with them. He believed that an unemployed woman worked for the Mafia simply because she did not have a job.Anyway, he happens to meet this one woman as he wonders into a butcher and decides to develop a relationship with her. All the while the movie builds up some paranoia pointing to this woman. It leads lots of clues making us think that she is the axe-murderer that murders her husbands on her honeymoons, but will then suddenly pull back with other evidence that she is not. By the end of the movie we are not really sure if she is a murderer or not, but Myers believes that she is.The closing part of the movie is very surrealistic, building up and trying to visualise the fear that Myers feels as he prepares to confront this woman. In a way the movie is predictable, but it is really well done, and those who expect it to be bad will be surprised.The one idea that comes from here is the idea that marriage and death being two sides of the same coin. As somebody once said to me when I pointed out that the difference between a Shakespearian comedy and a tragedy is that at the end of a comedy everybody gets married and at the end of a tragedy everybody dies, 'so, there is no difference then'. I used to think that linking marriage and death was an abomination, but when I think about it, I come to understand that it is not. In fact, it is probably a better way to look at it because it helps us understand how this one ceremony will bring about a change to our lives.I liked this movie, it is not the best movie that I have ever seen, but it is entertaining.

Manic in a way that even Austin Powers couldn't match, this vehicle for then-recent SNL grad Mike Myers hasn't aged quite as well as I'd expected. Myers delivers with ease when he's under the guise of a wild, colorful character - his best scenes are as a boisterous, drunken caricature of a father under heavy makeup - but comes off as insecure and off-putting in the more straightforward leading role. For every joke that lands, Myers ricochets three or four duds off his companions' foreheads, lending the impression that he's always on stage and robbing his turn as well-intentioned poet Charlie of a meaningful connection with the audience. Clunky, distracting post-production work and an excessive dose of early '90s pop culture also prove to be tricky obstacles, dating the material and lending the impression that it wasn't quite polished enough for a final release. When it's working, few films from the era are so consistently funny, but those sporadic dots of brilliance aren't quite enough to compensate for the shaky, timid nature of the rest of the story. A great premise with some moments of pure genius, it's probably best enjoyed as a series of expertly trimmed clips on YouTube.

Mike Myers stars in his best movie ever, So I married an axe murderer. I really wish I had this movie on DVD. Mike Myers has done some great movies, but none have ever lived up to So I married an axe murderer. This is a Mike Myers comedy that doesn't have all that many fart jokes. Not much obvious humor. This is a Mike Myers comedy I would like to see more of in the future.The movie is about a guy named Charlie(Mike Myers). One day he meets a butcher named Harriet(Nancy Travis) and they eventually get married. But while they are dating he has suspicions about her. All of her past lovers have been murdered. This movie is so good for many reason. I really wish Mike Myers can go back to doing comedies like this because after seeing The Love Guru, I lost all hope in Mike Myers. But I saw this movie for the first time in years recently, and I thought"These were the days when Mike Myers actually did good stuff".So I married an axe murderer:****/****