There was no better way to adapt a board game built on murder mystery clichés than to make it a spoof mystery movie. And yet, the film has its moments of complexity and suspense as well and a good eye for detail. The house, most notably, is laid out just like the game, secret passages and all, and the hallways have a wonderful tile pattern evoking the square game spaces. All of the classic weapons and characters are included, and the film has a hilarious interpretation of the mechanic of dragging a suspect into the room when accusing them, done with unnecessary fast-paced retracing-the-steps summation sequences where all the guests get strongarmed through the house and worn out with increasing slapstick.
The cast is great. The standouts are Tim Curry and Madeline Kahn, each of whom automatically elevate any project they participated in, but the rest of the cast works wonderfully as an irritable, stressed-out group dealing with piling-up murders and the comedy therein. There's lots of fast-paced group dialogue that demolishes the grim tone one might anticipate, and the jokes are extremely corny and aware of it. Some things miss, others are gems. The cast is also always on with subtle physical gags in their interactions—rewatch one ensemble scene and you can catch different gags each time by focusing on specific characters.
The mystery itself is the last reason to watch the film, since the gimmick of having multiple endings like the randomized board game required for the script to be less tight and satisfying than a conventional mystery story. Fortunately, home media releases include all three endings in sequence, since in its theatrical run, Clue only showed one per screening and the movie bombed for it. The plot goes fairly convoluted in connecting all of the suspects and making their backgrounds have different weight in each ending, and the character costumes and names go less camp than I'd like (their names are explained as pseudonyms and nobody wears their eponymous color). Still, the game is otherwise very charmingly adapted and a more traditional approach wouldn't have given us Kahn's character as we know it.
This is a goofy cult classic with some great moments, and its wise choice of tone makes it perhaps the best board-game adaptation to date.
Film A properly silly, loving adaptation.
There was no better way to adapt a board game built on murder mystery clichés than to make it a spoof mystery movie. And yet, the film has its moments of complexity and suspense as well and a good eye for detail. The house, most notably, is laid out just like the game, secret passages and all, and the hallways have a wonderful tile pattern evoking the square game spaces. All of the classic weapons and characters are included, and the film has a hilarious interpretation of the mechanic of dragging a suspect into the room when accusing them, done with unnecessary fast-paced retracing-the-steps summation sequences where all the guests get strongarmed through the house and worn out with increasing slapstick.
The cast is great. The standouts are Tim Curry and Madeline Kahn, each of whom automatically elevate any project they participated in, but the rest of the cast works wonderfully as an irritable, stressed-out group dealing with piling-up murders and the comedy therein. There's lots of fast-paced group dialogue that demolishes the grim tone one might anticipate, and the jokes are extremely corny and aware of it. Some things miss, others are gems. The cast is also always on with subtle physical gags in their interactions—rewatch one ensemble scene and you can catch different gags each time by focusing on specific characters.
The mystery itself is the last reason to watch the film, since the gimmick of having multiple endings like the randomized board game required for the script to be less tight and satisfying than a conventional mystery story. Fortunately, home media releases include all three endings in sequence, since in its theatrical run, Clue only showed one per screening and the movie bombed for it. The plot goes fairly convoluted in connecting all of the suspects and making their backgrounds have different weight in each ending, and the character costumes and names go less camp than I'd like (their names are explained as pseudonyms and nobody wears their eponymous color). Still, the game is otherwise very charmingly adapted and a more traditional approach wouldn't have given us Kahn's character as we know it.
This is a goofy cult classic with some great moments, and its wise choice of tone makes it perhaps the best board-game adaptation to date.