Review: Clue

“Husbands should be like Kleenex: soft, strong and disposable.”

What’s it all about? Six strangers are invited to a dinner party at a mansion out in the middle of nowhere. They are met by the butler, Wadsworth (Tim Curry), and hilarious, board-game-inspired chaos ensues.

Yesterday was the opening of Toronto Underground Cinema, a 700-seat movie theatre underneath Spadina that’s been hyped over the last few weeks by the likes of Kevin Smith and Roger Ebert. (Read John Semley’s article over at Torontoist for an in-depth history of the theatre’s revival.) For their “soft opening”, the Underground Cinema treated Toronto to a free double feature of Jonathan Lynn’s “Clue” and John Carpenter’s “Big Trouble In Little China”. Fortunately, I didn’t have much going on yesterday, so, I was able to get there early. I was pretty close to the front, but I heard the queue went around the block. Clearly, the Underground Cinema has the word-of-mouth thing down; It was a packed house.

My friends weren’t up for “Big Trouble In Little China”, so, I can’t say how that went over, but “Clue” was a success with the packed house. When the projector started, there was a lot of screaming and cheering. In all honesty, I had never seen “Clue” before last night. I knew nothing about it at all. When Tim Curry’s name panned across the screen, however, along with Martin Mull and Christopher Lloyd, I knew I was in for a treat.

But I didn’t think it would be this good. Yes, the third act is somewhat sagging in exposition, an explanation for everything — but that’s in no way a reason to shrug off this comedy. Everyone was in stitches. I can’t remember the last comedy I’ve seen that was this (purposefully) campy and absurd. It seemed somewhat like a musical, how the characters are immediately fleshed out, ridiculous and sparring with each other.

Apparently, the director, Jonathan Lynn, filmed three endings to “Clue”. I’m really interested to see the other endings of the film and find out if there were different killers. Frankly (and that was a hint to the ending I saw), I wouldn’t want to leave the theatre without Tim Curry’s brush-off of the murderer. If you haven’t seen “Clue”, rent it right away and watch it with as many people as you can. It’s a gem — and, if they play their cards right, the Toronto Underground Cinema will be too.

Notes: Directed by Jonathan Lynn; Produced by Debra Hill; Written by John Landis, Jonathan Lynn; Starring Tim Curry, Eileen Brennan, Lesley Ann Warren, Michael McKean, Christopher Lloyd, Madeline Kahn, Martin Mull; Music by John Morris; Cinematography by Victor J. Kemper; Editing by David Bretherton, Richard Haines.