Hello & welcome back to A Look at Disney, and we continue our investigation series as A Look at Disney Investigates continues as we head to the small screen to the 2002 Disney Channel Original Movie, Get A Clue. Get A Clue is unique in that in the only Disney Channel Original Movie to star Lindsay Lohan. I'm honestly shocked that I haven't covered more of her Disney movies starring her and considering, the theme of this year's event, this movie does take a bit of sense. Get A Clue is a basic children's mystery movie, that is at best harmless. And is a fun mystery for young kids but the clues leading to the reveal of the bad guy are as obvious as early Scooby Doo or Hardy Boys (both of which I love but some of the early works of both weren't too hard to figure out who the bad guy was). With that out of the way, let's begin.
The Plot
We follow a young and elite of New York's upper crust, Lexy Gold. Lexy works for her school newspaper and prides herself on getting the scoop for advice column. She doesn't like it being called a gossip column, even though that it is what it totally is. Lexy ends up submitting one of her newspaper articles to a local paper and gets posted but this article soon lands one of her teachers in hot water. We see that she competes with the school paper's editor to get her stories published and in perhaps one of the biggest cliches of the movie, these two start out hating each other and by the end of the movie, they end up together. It happens that a picture that Lexy took of her teacher, Mr. Walker with one of her sister's gadgets lands him in trouble as the next morning after Lexy's story is published, his car is discovered in the East River and Walker has disappeared. Lexy, with the help of the editor, Jack, and her best friend, Jen (played once again by a young Brenda Song, who we have discussed during my review of The Ultimate Christmas Present.) And a tagalong cameraman, Gabe that really adds nothing of value to the overall story. Lexy sets out to solve the mystery of Mr. Walker's disappearance as she feels guilty about ti happening and she overheard Walker talking to one of her other teachers, Miss Dawson the day before as Walker and Dawson were having an affair and Walker wanted to cut it off.
Lexy goes about trying to solve this mystery by first getting help from tech obsessed little sister, and uses her knowledge to get gadgets from a spy store to help solve the case. They start off by searching Jack's computer as it used to belong to Walker and see that Walker days ago had sent an email to Jack about a scholarship and that leads them to search Walker's old apartment. And there, they do find a bit more information and run into Detective Meany (Yes, really) , who is also searching for Walker. And like I said, this movie is pretty cliche because as soon as I saw him, I kinda figured he was the bad guy for two reasons, this movie relied on the trope of the British person being the bad guy.
And the actor, Charles Shaughnessy also played the villain in another Disney Channel Original Movie, Mom's Got A Date With A Vampire
And interestingly, Shaughnessy played the villain in an episode of the Disney Channel show, The Suite Life on Deck set at The Sherlock Holmes Museum. And yes, that is Maxwell Sheffield from The Nanny. Meanwhile, Jen & Gabe have set up cameras to record Miss Dawson as Gabe lives across the street. Yeah, that's bit creepy. Lexy and Jack later meet up with an elderly lady named Mrs. Petrossian at her house and discover that she is Mr. Walker's mother. And Walker happen to be there as well and we learn that his in on the lamb and had to change his name because he was accused of stealing $10,000,000 at his old job. Walker soon receives a letter from the culprit that had set him up telling him to meet at a hotel in NYC. After using a black light and getting some help from Lexy's younger sister, they discover that the location is the Fairmark Hotel. So, teenage sleuths along with Walker show up at the hotel and pretend to take the ransom money that the culprit has offered and Miss Dawson has shown up there as well but is taken hostage by the culprit as she was tricked by the culprit. The teens chase down the culprit and it is revealed to be Detective Meany and it turns out that he is actually Falco Grandville, who was Walker's boss from his old job and he was the one that set Walker up. Grandville is soon arrested by a real detective that had interviewed Lexy at the beginning of the movie but he soon arrests or attempts to arrest Walker but Lexy finds a way to prove Walker's innocence as she notices a brooch that Walker's mom was wearing. And that Walker's mom had found it there by chance and decided to keep it and it is actually worth the amount of money. After all, of the dust settles, Walker asks Miss Dawson to marry him and the movie ends with their wedding.
Like I said, this movie isn't great. It's a bit cliche and predictable but it's mostly harmless and a bit fun for young audiences. The mystery is way too easy to solve and the characters aren't all that well fleshed out but for what this movie is, it passes the time.
Characters
Main Character
Lexy Gold played by Lindsay Lohan
Lindsay Lohan is fine in this movie. The character here really doesn't ask much of Lohan and she is serviceable in the role. Like I said, there isn't much to the movie and that especially extends to the characters. You do see that she is smart and has aspirations but like I said, there isn't much to the characters.
Supporting Characters
Jen played by Brenda Song
Once again, Song as Jen really adds nothing to the movie. She's not bad but her character is pretty stock as she is just the typical tween best friend that is into fashion.
Jack Downey played by Bug Hall
It was really annoying, how they tried to make it so obvious that Lexy and Jack were different because Jack didn't live a wealthy lifestyle like the rest of the people that went to his school and he seemed to dismiss others based on them being richer than him. And of course, as I said they had Lexy and Jack not getting along throughout the movie, only for them to get together at the end of the movie.
Gabe played by Al Mukadam
Yeah, this character really added nothing of value to the overall movie. He could have been taken out of the movie and nothing would've been lost.
Orlando Walker/Nicolas Petrossian played by Ian Gomez
I really did like Gomez as Walker as he made the character sympathetic & easy to relate and fee for. As you could see that he was a good person that was just put in a bad situation.
Villain
Detective Charles Meany/Falco Grandville played by Charles Shaughnessy
Shaughnessy seemed to be having a blast as the villain of piece. He reveled in it and I would really like to see him in more villainous roles as the little that I've seen of him as a bad guy has been quite fun. And he was easily, the highlight of the movie for me.
My Final Thoughts
This movie is alright. It's not great but it's aiming to be anything more than just a fun little TV movie that a young audience could have fun watching. At best, it's a harmless movie with a super easy mystery to solve. Join me next time as we next time as we look at the Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers episode....
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