What is it?
It’s the first movie in which Mike Myers plays more than one part. In this case, he plays Charlie Mackenzie, a San Francisco-based fake beat poet with a total fear of commitment; and also Charlie’s father Stuart, a surly Scot with an affinity for all things Scottish. It’s all directed by a pre-Sorkin Tom Schlamme.

Why is it underrated?
In the pantheon of Mike Myers films, So I Married an Axe Murderer is doomed to sit a distant fourth, behind the two trilogies (Shrek, Austin Powers) that made the man a multi-gazillionaire, and a Saturday Night Live skit turned movie(s) (Wayne's World).¹ These movies made Myers a household name and the most quoted man in America. Axe Murderer bombed and sent Myers into a self-imposed exile/shame spiral. The film bombed and grossed just under $12 million, disappointing after the huge success of the Wayne’s World films. In fact, of all movies that Myers has starred in, this one didn’t even rake in 30% of the next lowest grossing film (Wayne’s World 2). Why no love?

This junior status in the Myers canon is undeserved. The movie is 90 minutes of pure entertainment, and really does keep you guessing until the end. Not in a Sixth Sense kind of way, but more in a “does that tall, manly looking woman at the bar have a penis?” kind of way. You just never know until you see it.

The plot is fun, with the little “did she/didn’t she” guessing game they play, but the characters are really what makes the movie great. Mike Myers is solid in his role as Charlie. It’s really the first time Myers got the chance to play himself at his own age. He’s on record stating that Wayne Campbell is himself as a teenager. In his other movies, the characters he plays are funny-talking schticks. But this version of Mike Myers is Mike Myers, and that’s a rare occurrence on the big screen.

Charlie’s fear of commitment causes him to break up with women for reasons like “she smelled like soup” or “she stole my cat,” but he comes off as funny and charming in his pursuit of Nancy Travis’s Harriet. As circumstantial facts seem to implicate her in the deaths of three newlywed husbands, he brilliantly vacillates between love and fear, alternately suspecting and dismissing her being a vicious killer.

The family scenes go down as the best in the entire movie. Brenda Fricker (Academy Award winner for her role in My Left Foot) takes her turn as Myers’s mother and is absolutely scene-stealing. She tries to make out with Charlie’s best friend Tony (the underrated Anthony LaPaglia) whenever she gets the chance, she calls the Weekly World News “the paper” (certainly Men in Black owes the film a debt of gratitude for that little nugget), and spouts lines like, “You’ve got that pickle up your ass again, haven’t you?” She’s the ultimate mother: loving, completely embarrassing and sexually harassing your friends. Hey--moms, right?

As Charlie's Scottish father, Stuart, Myers basically reprises his S.N.L. role as the proprietor of All Things Scottish, but given the greater freedom to insult and threaten those around him, the character becomes a hilarious caricature. He calls Charlie’s brother “HEED” (a Scottish-accented bastardization of the word “head”), and cruelly mocks the kid for having a slightly larger-than-normal noodle. He takes time to torture his son by comparing his head to Sputnik and asserting that the boy would probably cry himself to sleep on his oversized pillow. He’s also a fervent supporter of Lyndon Larouche, and a conspiracy theorist with an active dislike of Colonel Sanders “because he puts an addictive chemical in his chicken that makes you crave it fortnightly, smartass.”

Amanda Plummer plays her the role of Harriet’s sister with her usual “I just chugged three venti lattes and took six diet pills” energy. It isn’t hard for her to play a total psycho on screen (at this point, it’s probably safe to assume she is one), and she comes through again. Alan Arkin is brilliant in just about everything he does (see Little Miss Sunshine or the original In-Laws for proof). He pops up as the police chief who’s so nice, he pretends to be an asshole so Anthony LaPaglia would feel “more like a cop.”

The movie features several well-placed and very funny cameos. Phil Hartman's Alcatraz tour guide, John “Vicki” Johnson, relates a charming anecdote about “Machine Gun” Kelly urinating into the skull of his prison bitch. Steven Wright, Charles Grodin, and Michael Richards all appear in cameo roles as memorable characters / wonderful devices to move the plot along nicely. That’s the perfect combination of form and function right there.

The movie wound up being a stepping stone of sorts for Mike Myers. He proved that he could handle the starring role. And since playing more than one character worked so well in this movie, he stepped it up: playing two wacky lead characters in the first Austin Powers, moving up to three in its sequel, and by the third one, he played four characters. In the inevitable sequel², they may not hire any other actors and just let Myers play all roles himself.

It’s not the best movie ever filmed in San Francisco (that distinction belongs to the almost-forgotten Sneakers), but it’s damn close. And it uses the city to its advantage. Between Alcatraz, Pacific Heights, Haight-Ashbury, the Embarcadero, and the Golden Gate Bridge, you get a full view of an incredible city. And if you like the song, “There She Goes,” you won’t be disappointed. There’s like ten different versions of it in the film.

There are three Shreks, three Austin Powers, and two Wayne’s Worlds. This begs a particular question: Where’s Axe Murderer 2?

With any luck, it’s coming after Shrek 4: Smack the Donkey.