Rate 'Clue' (1985)

I really wanted to like it and I will probably try watching it again at some point but I was kinda disappointed. 6/10

twothousandonemark wrote:
I completely agree with that sentence (and I'll also add that I found Martin Mull hilarious as well), but on the whole I agree with @jamesavalon : I really want to like it, but for some reason it didn't quite work for me. (I've now seen it twice and had the same reaction both times.)

More than anything, it becomes too frenetic, too crazy, and I don't think the jokes and gags are of the same caliber as the pace. For example, I find the "but maybe it's poisoned" business hilarious but all the running-around weak. It just gets to be too much and, in the end, disappointing.

The inevitable cross-reference here is with the very similar Murder by Death, which I find superior on nearly every level. The only thing Clue does better is effectiveness as a mystery-parody; that is to say, Neil Simon doesn't seem to know how to end Murder by Death, and we get unrecognizable parody and a nonsensical ending instead.

Clue does know how to end--three times, in fact!--even if I think the parody would have been better if it had been clued (as The Simpsons' mystery spoof, "Who Shot Mr. Burns," is).

Still, that aspect aside, and while I don't dislike Clue, I like Murder by Death much more.


Trivia: Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim, who wrote one of my favorite movies, The Last of Sheila, were originally supposed to write the script for Clue, but--as Doghouse6 informed me on the Classics board--"...they couldn't reach an agreement because Paramount balked at their price." Which is too bad, as I would have loved to see what they could have done with this story. There certainly would have been clues, at least!

It's good!

7/10

I rewatched it and I liked it much more the second time. 8/10