Mike Myers became famous on Saturday Night Live before starting to make movies like several other cast members have done.  Myers has had some success with his movies, though not all of them have been that popular.  So I Married An Ax Murderer is one of his less successful movies.

Love wasn't easy for Charlie MacKenzie.  He had a deep fear of marriage that caused him to end relationships when they were getting too serious for stupid reasons.  For example, he claimed that Pam smelled like soup.  His issues weren't helped by his mother showing him a story in The Weekly World News about Mrs. X, a woman who kept getting married and killing her husbands during the honeymoons.

Soon after hearing about Mrs. X, Charlie met Harriet when he went in the butcher shop where she worked.  He was attracted to her and it wasn't long before they were dating.  Charlie was determined not to mess up another relationship and things were going fine for a while and he even managed to get along with Harriet's sister Rose.  Then a few things Harriet said made Charlie start to doubt her, especially after he remembered the story about Mrs. X.  Charlie then decided to get his friend Tony, who was a cop, to look into the killings.

I think that So I Married An Ax Murderer has been considered a romantic comedy.  The movie did have romantic comedy elements, but it wasn't a typical romantic comedy.  The development of the relationship between Charlie and Harriet was the main focus for the movie.  Even with that attention given to the relationship, there really wasn't a lot of romance in the movie.  Charlie seemed to want to be in a relationship, but he would panic when things would get serious.  Most of the time he grabbed onto any excuse to end things, like claiming that the woman he was dating was stealing things, part of the mob, or smelled like soup.  He did try to be different with Harriet, but he still tried to sabotage things.  Nothing complicated was going on, but it was enough to keep things interesting and I thought that the movie was entertaining overall.  I did think the plot was more original than other romantic comedies.  

The plot for So I Married An Ax Murderer was a bit dark, which may not appeal to some viewers.  Certain aspects of the movie, connected to the story about Mrs. X and how Charlie reacted to it, did seem to be poking some fun at movies like Basic Instinct.  Even some of the humor was dark or a bit twisted, which is why the movie won't appeal to everyone.  Most of the humor was somehow connected to what was going with the relationship between Charlie and Harriet.  I also thought that Tony and Charlie's parents added humor to several of the scenes they were in.  The comedy worked for the most part, though I have seen funnier movies.

Harriet didn't share much about herself even after she and Charlie were dating.  She would answer questions without really sharing much and it did seem like she was hiding something.  That did add a bit of mystery to the movie since it wasn't clear what was going on with Harriet.  Some time was also focused on the story about Mrs. X and how Tony was trying to find out what happened with the missing men.  The mystery did help to keep things interesting and I did feel like there were a few surprises.  The mystery wasn't that strong, which might disappoint some viewers.  A few scenes did include a bit of violence that wasn't overly graphic.  Some of the characters used profanity, including the word that rhymes with luck.  The movie is rated PG-13, so it really isn't something for children to see.

Charlie and Harriet met fairly early in the movie when he went into the butcher shop where she worked.  It wasn't said for sure, but it seemed like not much time had passed since Charlie had broken up with his last girlfriend.  Even though he knew nothing about her, he was interested and returned to butcher shop where he ended up working behind the counter to help her because it was so busy.  By that night, she took him back to her place and he spent the night.  It wasn't shown, but it was made clear that they had sex.  They were shown in bed together a few other times and Charlie's bare behind was shown once.   

Charlie had issues with relationships and kept finding excuses to end things.  He seemed like a nice enough guy, but he was very afraid of commitment, especially marriage.  He went to a coffee house regularly where he would perform poems.  He had one that he used every time a relationship ended that he would slightly change to include things about each woman.  Charlie really wasn't a fully developed character and ended up being rather flat.  I did think that Mike Myers was fine in the part.  Myers also played Charlie's father Stuart.  For that character, Myers used the Scottish accent that he would use again in some of his later movies.  

Charlie's mother May considered The Weekly World News to be a legitimate newspaper full of real stories.  She had a tendency to get a tad frisky with Tony.  Brenda Fricker was fine in the part.  Tony was a cop who thought many aspects of his job were boring.  He wanted his job to be more like how police work had been shown on some of his favorite older cop television shows.  He got pulled into Charlie's suspicions when he started looking into the murders that Mrs. X was credited with.  Anthony LaPaglia was good in the part.  Alan Arkin turned up in a few scenes as Tony's captain.  Phil Hartman also briefly turned up as a guide at Alcatraz who wanted to be called Vicky.

Harriet worked at a butcher shop and seemed to be handy with a knife.  She seemed to be a nice woman, though she had some secrets and was hiding something.  Nancy Travis handled the part well.  Rose was Harriet's sister.  Rose was supposed to be living with Harriet, though she seemed to sort of come and go.  Rose said some odd things at times.  She wasn't around that much, so Amanda Plummer didn't have that much to do.  Willie was Charlie's younger brother who was just around in a couple of scenes.  Debi Mazar was in one scene as Tony's girlfriend.  Charles Grodin and Michael Richards also turned up in a few short scenes.

Main Cast

Alan Arkin - Police Captain
Brenda Fricker - May
Anthony LaPaglia - Tony
Mike Myers - Charlie/Stuart
Amanda Plummer - Rose
Nancy Travis - Harriet

Thomas Schlamme

So I Married An Ax Murderer turns up on television every so often.  Depending on which station it is on, certain things, especially the language, will be edited.  The movie is available on DVD.  The DVD I've seen doesn't have any sort of extras.  I don't think there are any other versions that have more extras, but I could be wrong about that.

So I Married An Ax Murderer was an entertaining movie, but it won't appeal to everyone.  Fans of Mike Myers may find something to enjoy about it.

Mike Myers Movie Reviews
Austin Powers in Goldmember ~ Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery ~ Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me ~ Austin Powers in Goldmember ~ The Cat in the Hat ~ Shrek ~ Shrek 2 ~ Shrek the Third ~

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD