My friends, I think we can all agree that if there’s a movie that most of the internet can agree upon disliking, it’s 2007’s Epic Movie. However, I’m not her to talk about how universally panned that particular time capsule is, but rather to praise something that it seems to have gotten right. At least, that’s what I’d assume after reading Carmen Electra’s account of spoofing legendary X-Men movie character Mystique. You see, the Baywatch cast member admitted she didn’t know what she was getting into when agreeing to the gig.
For a collection of movies that didn’t seem to invest much time in the stories it was trying to rip off, apparently the one thing that directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer didn’t skimp on was the prosthetic makeup. This leads us to Ms. Electra’s fond remembrance of this fact, shared to her Instagram page, as seen below:
I honestly have to give the Epic Movie crew credit for makeup effects that look that good, especially in a parody movie that doesn’t depend on a character being in full makeup. While the superhero franchise it was spoofing certainly needed to keep leads like Jennifer Lawrence and Rebecca Romijn blue from head to toe, Ms. Electra’s time in the part wasn’t nearly as extensive.
And admittedly, Carmen Electra’s Mystique makeup looks miles better than what was shown in 2019’s Dark Phoenix. Which only further pushes that official X-Men picture further down into the depths of obscurity it’s fallen into. Wow, I did not expect this mini-rabbit hole of something Epic Movie excelled at.
I mean, say what you will about the film itself, and our official Epic Movie review absolutely did back in the day, but the dedication shown in the further elements that had to be built in for this gag is quite fantastic, as you can see in the clip shown below:
Honestly, I give credit to any actor who can sit through the process of being made up to look like Mystique. Poor Jennifer Lawrence’s “bicycle seat” story from the production of 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past is more than enough to scare off some who aren’t good at sitting still for hours. Considering it was one of the alleged reasons Lawrence wanted to quit the Marvel franchise, it’s clearly not something that everyone can tolerate.
Though it sounds like Carmen Electra’s criticism of her Epic Movie experience lands closer to that of X-Men veteran Rebecca Romijn, the OG Mystique. Romijn actually enjoyed her X-Men makeup, while also explaining how tedious it happened to be. While Ms. Electra doesn’t seem to have any notes on the application process, it’s the removal that seems to have stuck with her for quite some time.
So let this be a lesson to anyone who’s looking to become the next Mystique in the realm of upcoming X-Men movies and TV shows. While the animated antics of X-Men ’97 may not require you to get into some extensive makeup application, the dawn of a new live-action era in that canon has a high potential to require that honor.
Just in case, you may want to revisit the X-Men movies, almost all of which can be found with a Disney+ subscription, if only to mentally prepare for the gig that Carmen Electra, and several others, undertook with great responsibility. And if you really want to watch Epic Movie, that title is currently streaming for free on Plex.