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Get a Clue (June 1/05)

Because Get a Clue was made for (and premiered on) The Disney Channel, it doesn't come as a huge surprise that the movie has virtually nothing to offer viewers over a certain age (that being around twelve or so). Despite the presence of a few charismatic performers - ie Lindsay Lohan, Ian Gomez, etc - the film never becomes anything more than an utterly forgettable and (more often than not) a flat-out boring waste of time.

The storyline - thin as it is - revolves around a New York City-based high school student named Lexy (Lohan) who stumbles upon an affair between two of her teachers, Mr. Walker (Gomez) and Ms. Dawson (Amanda Plummer). But when the story winds up published in a major newspaper, Mr. Walker goes missing - leaving Ms. Dawson the prime suspect. This leaves Lexy with little choice but to do some investigating of her own, along with her three closest friends (played by Bug Hall, Brenda Song, and Ali Mukaddam).

Get a Clue has clearly been fashioned to appeal strictly to the much-coveted "tween" demographic; with its flashy editing, mind-numbingly bland music, and general emphasis on style over substance, there's no doubt that 10-year-old girls will get a kick out of the film (if only to watch their hero, Lohan, outsmart virtually every adult in the cast). The screenplay, by Alana Burgi Sanko, is devoid of anything even remotely approximating complexity, while the film's look (courtesy of director Maggie Greenwald) resembles a generic, family-friendly sitcom.

The bottom line is that Get a Clue is best left for sleepover night among young girls, and although some of the actors (particularly Gomez) are actually fairly decent, about the only thing here that's able to hold our interest is the question of whether or not the film was shot in Toronto (spoiler: it was).

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About the DVD: Buena Vista Home Entertainment presents Get a Clue in its proper full-screen format, along with a 22-minute (!) alternate ending.
© David Nusair