Posted on November 17, 2011 by Darren
Clue is an interesting movie. It’s an obviously flawed one, but it’s also conducted with such impressive energy and a cheeky sense of fun that it’s quite easy to overlook some of the structural problem, and rather glaring plot holes. It’s an affectionate parody of those classic “whodunnit” mysteries, stories like Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians, featuring a small cast trapped together, investigating a murder. Based on the game Clue (or Cluedo to us Europeans), it’s the first movie based on a boardgame, and I can’t help but feel that it’s still the best.

The usual suspects...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Board game, Clue, Cluedo, Colonel Mustard, Crime fiction, film, Game, House Un-American Activities Committee, List of Cluedo characters, Movie, New England, non-review review, review, tim curry, United States | Leave a comment »
Posted on July 29, 2010 by Darren
The problem with Congo is simply that it’s not entirely certain whether it wants to be taken seriously (even a little bit) or simply wants to veer off into a camp B-movie-style “killer apes” flick. Unfortunately, it never rally picks a definitive approach, and fluctuates between the two – making it difficult to take seriously during its action scenes and yet hard to accept the camp humour when it’s offered. It’s not a terrible film, but it’s a hevily-flawed one. I can’t help but get the impression that the movie might have been better accepted had it gone for a more fitting title like “Attack of the Killer Apes of King Solomon’s Mines!”

Not everything is better with monkeys...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: adventure, camp, congo, dylan walsh, ernie hudon, gorillas, joe pantoliano, killer ape, laura linney, michael crichton, monkeys, tim curry | 5 Comments »