Welcome to this week’s edition of the Nerd Review!  Every week the Nerds give you their take on a different classic from the Nerdosphere.  This week the Dave and Patrick review the cult classic comedy Clue!!

The Flick:  Clue

What’s it About:  Based on the famous board game of the same name, six strangers are invited to an old mansion to confront Mr. Boddy, who has been blackmailing all of the guests.  When Mr. Body mysteriously turns up dead, the guests along with Mr. Boddy’s butler Wadsworth try to unravel the mystery of who done it.  Yet as bodies pile up, the group seems to have no clue who the murderer is…

Metacritic Score: 39

The Nerds’ Take on Clue:

Patrick:  Back when Bandwagon Nerds did our 80’s project episode, I left Clue off my list of top 10 comedies.  I’ve been kicking myself ever since.  Thinking back, this movie should have been number 10 at worst.  This is one of the great ensemble comedies of its time.  It is a damn shame that critics and moviegoers didn’t see it that way back in 1985.  I think if this film had been released today, or even 10 years later than its release date, Clue would have been held in higher regard and probably made some serious bank.

The story is just like the board game: six characters are in an old mansion and someone has murdered the owner, Mr. Body.  The six guests, forgive me as I name them all: Col. Mustard, Mr. Green, Prof. Plum, Mrs. Peacock, Mrs. White, and Miss Scarlet were invited to the mansion by Mr. Boddy’s butler Wadsworth.  It’s revealed Mr. Boddy has been blackmailing all of the guests and Wadsworth.  Wadsworth wants the group to join him in exposing, however Mr. Boddy gives each guest a weapon and invites them to kill Wadsworth instead to protect their secrets.  Mr. Boddy turns out the lights, a shot is fired, and Mr. Boddy is found dead when the lights go up.  The six guests and Wadsworth then begin working together to determine the murderer.  As the group pieces together clues, more strangers periodically arrive at the mansion and more murders take place.  But who is the murderer?

The plot is a comedic murder mystery, but it’s really hard to describe the comedy as you role through the story points.  In fact, I’m still struggling to find a way to do this movie justice.  There are so many gags in this film.  There are one liners.  There are sight gags.  There are running gags.  There’s sharp dialogue and clever word play. There are actors chewing up scenes.  I think that’s where I’ll go here, I’m gonna talk about the cast.  You have some real heavy hitters in comedy here:  Michael McKean, Lesley Ann Warren, Madeline Kahn, and Christopher Lloyd play four of the famous game piece suspects.  But everyone knows this film is anchored by Tim Curry in his role as Wadsworth.  For much of the film he’s the outside eyes and ears of the of the audience, yet he’s also the one driving the guests in their investigation.  In terms of chemistry, the cast clicks.  One of the best examples for me is the  “1 plus 2 plus 1 plus 1…” back and forth between Warren and Curry.  It’s just so smoothly done and hilarious.  Everything just seems to work in this movie.   One of the neatest things about Clue when it was in theaters was the fact you got one of three possible endings.  In the home video version, you are treated to all three, with the third being the “actual” ending.  Showing all three is a perfect coda to a movie filled with great laughs and greater wit.  If you’ve never seen this gem, do yourself a favor and watch it this week.  It’s streaming on Amazon prime and is worth your time.  Well, there’s my review.  Now, I’m gonna go home and sleep with my wife.

Patrick’s Rating:  4.8/5

Dave: Anyone who has listened to Bandwagon Nerds (BWN) knows that I am a big fan of board games. That being said, one can count on one hand the number of board games that have been turned into a live-action movie. While video games have provided ample fodder for movies (most not being so good) or TV Shows (some, like The Witcher, being very good), board games are just a tough medium to transfer over to the silver screen. 1985’s Clue, however, is a rare bird indeed as it not only is a movie based on a board game, but it is quite a good movie at that.

I will go out on a limb here and guess that most of us have played Clue at one time or another. Clue is an all-time classic in board gaming. True, it is not a strategic masterpiece like modern games such as Terraforming Mars, Twilight Struggle, or Twilight Imperium. Not even close. But it does teach the rudimentary basics of deductive reasoning and how to use the process of elimination. The general gist is to use that process of elimination to figure out who killed someone, with what weapon, and in which location. It is great fun, especially for younger players. With that as a backdrop, came a 1985 adaptation of this classic board game. Clue is a dark comedy that does an excellent job at capturing the key elements of the board game and telling a very funny, and sometimes disturbing story.

In Clue, six supposed strangers are invited to an old mansion for a dinner party. They are all given false names and soon learn that a 7^th guest, a Mr. Boddy, has been blackmailing each of them for all sorts of nefarious reasons. We also add the butler, Wadsworth, and the maid, Yvette, to the mix and its off to the races we go. Wadsworth indicates that the police have been called to the mansion and all the guests were called to the mansion to confront Mr. Boddy. Faced with the threat of being arrested, Mr. Boddy turns the tables and presents each guest with one of the iconic weapons from the board game. Mr. Boddy demands that Wadsworth be killed, the lights go out, and when they come back on, Mr. Boddy is believed to have been killed. From there, the guests basically pair up to try and solve the mystery of who killed Mr. Boddy and how. The cook is also killed, as is a motorist. There is a mysterious phone call from J. Edgar Hoover, a messenger girl also gets killed and it is all done very well with lots of laughs to be found. When the move actually played in cinemas, the audiences got one of three endings, although only one of the three was generally regarded as the actual ending (although the other two were tabbed as being “possible”). In its present format, especially if you watch it on Amazon Prime like I did, you will get all three endings. In this way, Clue has another notable foundation as being one of the first movies to employ the concept of alternate endings.

What makes Clue work is the fact that it is a funny murder mystery played out by a truly fantastic cast. Tim Curry is phenomenal as Wadsworth and he is the glue that holds the film together, despite the fact that he is as manic a character as you will ever see once he gets going. Martin Mull plays Colonel Mustard, Madeline Khan plays Mrs. White, Christopher Lloyd plays Professor Plum, Eileen Brennan plays Mrs. Peacock, Lesley Ann Warren plays Ms. Scarlet, and Michael McxKean plays Mr. Green. With a cast like that, it was impossible for the movie to fail.

That does not mean the movie is without its faults. While the cast portrays each respective character amazingly, the events are so far out there and borderline ridiculous, that it might not appeal to some people who are looking for something more serious. It is certainly funny, but probably not up to the level of some of the other 1980’s comedies we have reviewed here, or that we discussed during the 80’s Project on BWN. To think that all of these people would simply show up at a mansion based on a letter they received, or that they would go to the lengths they go to cover up their own misdeeds, is a bit hard to believe. On the other hand, that is what makes the movie so fun. It is not supposed to be serious; it is just supposed to be fun, like the board game.

Clue is one of many 80’s movies that did not do so well at the box office but, years later, achieved a bit of a cult classic status. I would again stress that the performance of the cast makes this move easily worth the investment of your time, especially if you have ever played the board game but have not seen the move. The novelty of seeing a board game like Clue brought to life like this is highly enjoyable and too much fun to be ignored….and it might make you more than a little curious as to what the Monopoly movie might look like.

Dave’s Rating: 3.5/5

Nerds Overall Rating on Clue (1985) :  4.15/5