Movies based on video games are a dime a dozen these days, and rarely very good, thanks to a certain Uwe Boll. But, really, how many movies can you think of based on board games? Just one comes to mind, and it is easily among my top ten. 'Clue' is a fast past murder mystery/comedy with an amazing casting line-up. I can't say much for the board game itself (not that I have the patience for them anyway), but I am a fan of the murder-mystery genre, and this dark humor plays it's card right to give us an entertaining little film that leaves you breathless between laugh out loud gags. If you watch it once, you'll watch it again and again!
Tim Curry is the big name on the cast list, and his performance as the butler is a prime example of this man's talents. Also on this list, we have Eileen Brennan (Murder by Death) as Mrs. Peacock, Madeline Kahn (History of the World pt. 1, Blazing Saddles) as Mrs. White, Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future, The Addams Family) as Prof. Plum, Michael McKean (This is Spinal Tap) as Mr. Green, Martin Mull (Rosanne, Sabrina the Teenage Witch)as Col. Mustard, and Lesley Ann Warren (Deep Water) as Ms. Scarlet. Most of these names I had not heard of before watching Clue, but I recognized their faces from about a thousand different places. They may not be A-list actors (excluding Tim Curry, and probably Christopher Lloyd), but they bring so much energy to the film, and they extract every bit of funny possible.
I simply adore Tim Curry, he is one of my favorite actors, but in this film, Madeline Kahn stole the show in my eyes. Instead of playing the maid (or the cook, depending on your version), Mrs. White is somewhat of a black widow and gets all of the best lines.
'Men should be like Kleenex; Soft, strong, and disposable.'
I rarely get excited about casting or celebrities or any of that, I like to look at movies as, I don't know, a tangent universe where Average Joe looks like Tom Cruise (ick) and someone like Brad Pitt doesn't think he's too pretty to get punched in the mouth once in a while. But Madeline Kahn has a place in my heart, all snuggled up with Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder.
My only beef here (which I also have with House on Haunted Hill, but I'll let that slide because if Vincent Price invited me for a sleepover, I wouldn't second guess it either) is that these people don't know each other, and they don't know Mr. Boddy. They receive letters to go to a place they've never been and they all go? Call me a cynic, but if I got a letter like that, I would assume it was some kind of weird prank from someone without much of a sense of humor.
Speaking of humor! You would hardly remember this was a murder mystery if it wasn't for the corpse! This is such a funny movie, there is a nice healthy mix of slapstick, dry humor, and sitcom with silly one-liners and plenty of innuendo (via Ms. Scarlet and Prof. Plum, mostly) that the drama and the darkness is well hidden. Not that it is a bad thing, exactly, it just isn't what you expect from murder. Sometimes it seems as if the characters are even that serious about the death.
I've probably watched this movie more often than any other movie in my library, which is quite a feat, as it is more often out on loan than it is on the shelf. It is not a big budget production, but it isn't quite a B movie. I'm not sure how I feel about this. it's either really really good, production-wise for a B movie, or not good at all for an A movie! But really, that isn't what's important. What really matters is that I laugh my ass off at this movie every time! I'm hesitant to give out a perfect ten so early in my reviewing life, but if you've seen this movie, you'd understand. I'm deducting points for Mrs. Peacocks weird hat. 9.5/10!
Friday, October 24, 2008
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Could Have Slept Through the Dark Knight (6.5/10)
I don't think I will ever be able to like Batman. Not really. It is like how when I eat tofu or soy. I know it is fine and I will probably end up enjoying it as I always do, but I am still chewing it funny and expecting the worst. It is good and all, but it is still not quite the same. When it comes to super heroes, I'll always prefer indulging on a meat and potatoes kind of guy, instead of buff guys in rubber suits.
I do not want to talk to much about Heath Leger's role as the Joker, considering all of the attention orbiting around it. I've read nothing but rave reviews, but I have a hard time seeing the Joker as this kind of psychopath. I've always thought of him as the guy who you smile at in the supermarket and send a Christmas card and a plate of cookies to while he gathers up stray animals at night and always has his basement light on at night. That was the beauty of Jack Nicholson's version. He *is* that guy, and whenever I for one read something unsettling involving him, what else can I do but nod and give it a 'Yeah, he's weird.' A friend of mine commented on the fact that Nicholson was playing himself as the Joker, but really, that was the beauty of it! I think there is something lost when the Joker is as outwardly crazy as he is inside, like the dread and suspense of what he might do to those around him is missing, but is instead replaced with a squeamish terror which really isn't something I feel comfortable being in a movie that was clearly advertised to children.
I guess my only real beef with the film was the way Two-Face was portrayed. Not that anyone should have been surprised at his inclusion. I mean really, once Harvey Dent was established as a main character, it was practically written on the screen. Not that you would have known it by the gasps and "oh man" 's that came from the audience around me. Keeping in mind that this was the midnight showing, I was shocked that there weren't more comic fans in the audience who also scoffed at this sad attempt at a plot twist. No, it wasn't that he was in the film that bothered me. Two-Face is an excellent villain! The role he played in this was just not Two-Face. I feel cheated that none of these guys were quite who I remember them as. It is just weird. In hindsight, I will admit that the two work well inside the story and it all flowed well in a neat and clear way that tied up all of the loose ends of the plot, but still leaving it open for another sequel. But I digress.
Two-Face is not a weepy, moody child. He was just not the emotionally charged picture of chance that he was depicted as, and that whole leaving his victim's lives up to the flip of a coin? I mean, I *guess* that's kind of accurate, but it was so much more than that. He was so much more than all of that! I guess this is the point where I made up my own ideas as to his role and the deeper lying meaning, but Two-Face, to me, was an overarching image of duality that is inside of everything, not just the 'yes or no' chance of a coin toss, but good and evil itself, light or darkness, left or right. Everything.
Now that I'm done complaining about how my nerdiness is isn't appreciated, I'll move on to something a little more positive. The makeup work for the Joker was really good. Nothing spectacular, but really good. If there is one thing that I've learned form years of volunteering at the haunted house on Halloween, it is that it takes a lot of work to look that bad. I just wish that there had been some initiative here and done up a really gruesome effects for Two-Face, instead of relying on computer graphics. Alas, such is the way of technology.
What really bothers me about this film is how badly people cried out for this. 'Batman Begins' wasn't dark enough for them? This is what people wanted? This was senselessly violent, and deserved more than a PG-13 rating. This is just ugliness. This is the grit that people should be terrified exists in the world around us, not something to throw on the big screen as a summer blockbuster.
Additionally, there were some very weak points in the film, some gadgets that seemed to appear out of thin air because the writers had worked themselves into a corner, and some chance events that seemed a bit *too* unlikely. In one certain scene, I wondered if Gotham existed entirely outside of physics, but I digress.
On the whole, The Dark Knight was a decent summer flick that I would not say no to watching again. I couldn't see myself buying it, and it didn't turn me on to Batman in any way. I would recommend this film if looking for something to watch explosions without pondering the intricate subplots and deeper meanings, but I'd still only give it a 6.5 out of 10. I don't see how this skyrocketed so quickly to the best movie of all time.
I do not want to talk to much about Heath Leger's role as the Joker, considering all of the attention orbiting around it. I've read nothing but rave reviews, but I have a hard time seeing the Joker as this kind of psychopath. I've always thought of him as the guy who you smile at in the supermarket and send a Christmas card and a plate of cookies to while he gathers up stray animals at night and always has his basement light on at night. That was the beauty of Jack Nicholson's version. He *is* that guy, and whenever I for one read something unsettling involving him, what else can I do but nod and give it a 'Yeah, he's weird.' A friend of mine commented on the fact that Nicholson was playing himself as the Joker, but really, that was the beauty of it! I think there is something lost when the Joker is as outwardly crazy as he is inside, like the dread and suspense of what he might do to those around him is missing, but is instead replaced with a squeamish terror which really isn't something I feel comfortable being in a movie that was clearly advertised to children.
I guess my only real beef with the film was the way Two-Face was portrayed. Not that anyone should have been surprised at his inclusion. I mean really, once Harvey Dent was established as a main character, it was practically written on the screen. Not that you would have known it by the gasps and "oh man" 's that came from the audience around me. Keeping in mind that this was the midnight showing, I was shocked that there weren't more comic fans in the audience who also scoffed at this sad attempt at a plot twist. No, it wasn't that he was in the film that bothered me. Two-Face is an excellent villain! The role he played in this was just not Two-Face. I feel cheated that none of these guys were quite who I remember them as. It is just weird. In hindsight, I will admit that the two work well inside the story and it all flowed well in a neat and clear way that tied up all of the loose ends of the plot, but still leaving it open for another sequel. But I digress.
Two-Face is not a weepy, moody child. He was just not the emotionally charged picture of chance that he was depicted as, and that whole leaving his victim's lives up to the flip of a coin? I mean, I *guess* that's kind of accurate, but it was so much more than that. He was so much more than all of that! I guess this is the point where I made up my own ideas as to his role and the deeper lying meaning, but Two-Face, to me, was an overarching image of duality that is inside of everything, not just the 'yes or no' chance of a coin toss, but good and evil itself, light or darkness, left or right. Everything.
Now that I'm done complaining about how my nerdiness is isn't appreciated, I'll move on to something a little more positive. The makeup work for the Joker was really good. Nothing spectacular, but really good. If there is one thing that I've learned form years of volunteering at the haunted house on Halloween, it is that it takes a lot of work to look that bad. I just wish that there had been some initiative here and done up a really gruesome effects for Two-Face, instead of relying on computer graphics. Alas, such is the way of technology.
What really bothers me about this film is how badly people cried out for this. 'Batman Begins' wasn't dark enough for them? This is what people wanted? This was senselessly violent, and deserved more than a PG-13 rating. This is just ugliness. This is the grit that people should be terrified exists in the world around us, not something to throw on the big screen as a summer blockbuster.
Additionally, there were some very weak points in the film, some gadgets that seemed to appear out of thin air because the writers had worked themselves into a corner, and some chance events that seemed a bit *too* unlikely. In one certain scene, I wondered if Gotham existed entirely outside of physics, but I digress.
On the whole, The Dark Knight was a decent summer flick that I would not say no to watching again. I couldn't see myself buying it, and it didn't turn me on to Batman in any way. I would recommend this film if looking for something to watch explosions without pondering the intricate subplots and deeper meanings, but I'd still only give it a 6.5 out of 10. I don't see how this skyrocketed so quickly to the best movie of all time.
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