Director: Rob Thomas
Running time: 1 hour and 47 minutes
Veronica Mars (the movie) is the continuation -and unofficial finale (or maybe not)- of the tv show, also titled Veronica Mars, about the now grown up Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell), ex-teen-private-investigator-now-new-york-lawyer, who comes back to Neptune, California to help ex-boyfriend Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring) who is investigated for the murder of his girlfriend and famous singer.
Let me start by emphasising that i was a pretty big fan of the series back in the day. I've watched every episode about 3 to 4 times.I loved the whole LoVe thing and i really enjoyed the wittiness and quickness of the show.So if i seem harsh or neat-picky in my review, it's only because i was invested in the story and the characters for long time.
The movie does a lot of things right. Veronica is, still, the sarcastic, quick on her feet, clever (ex-)PI that we know and love. Her character makes the movie worth watching. If you were a fan of the show you will, definitely, love seeing her again. In fact, you will love watching all the characters of the show coming together. There is enough personality and shading to everyone, especially for a movie who's main focus was the mystery rather than the relationships and the human interactions. Logan, although very improved in comparisson to the series version, still has temper issue. Dick has a deep-routed (in my opinion) depression, even though he jokes about it,which is interesting and i would like to have seen more about it (both in the movie and the show). All those undertones in the characters made them more believable and relatable. On a similar note, i really appreciated how the movie didn't blame the Piz and Veronica break up on Piz. He wasn't made into the bad guy, like we've seen in so many movies. He was patient and understanding but the fact is that some relationships don't last, just like in real life, without anyone being at fault. Now, regarding the murder part of the movie, i have to say it was well done. It was intricate enough, with no apparent solution but, still, fun to try and solve. There were multiple suspects and at no point did the movie go for the easy way out. Finally, even though the LoVe relationship wasn't depicted as good as i wanted it to have been,there was a scene that i loved(the song choice made it even better). All the big LoVe fans know what scene i am talking about, the car scene. Since this scene was so perfect (for me,at least) i will not ruin it by talking about it, i will, just, quote Veronica (yes, there is narration and it is actually good) and say, "Do i get a chip for this? Pouring the drink? Swishing it? Smelling it? Leaving the bar without taking a sip?Is this what getting clean feels like?".
One of my main problems with the movie was that it was more mystery than character driven. The reason i was excited about Veronica Mars coming out with a movie continuation of the show was that i would be able to see all the characters that i loved so much on the show. And the fact that we were focused more on "who was the murderer" rather than "how will Logan and Veronica get back together" disappointed me and my inner LoVe fangirl. Similarly, i thought that both the Piz-Veronica breakup and the Logan-Veronica makeup were done too quickly. What i mean by that is that one second Veronica was in a relationship with Piz and the next she wasn't, and one second she was single and the next she was back together with Logan. I would have liked to see all those events play out more and take their time. One thing that i found strange and unnecessary was the Weevil (Francis Capra) storyline. I didn't understand how it moved the story along. I felt like it was, only, so that characters like Weevil and Celeste Kane (Lisa Thornhill) wouldn't be left out of the movie. Actually, i didn't (still don't) know how to feel about the end of that storyline, either. I'm not going to spoil it but if a sequel doesn't get made, Weevil's story ends in a bittersweet note.Moreover, something that happens a lot in movies and it frustrates me all the time is when there is a recent death or murder and the characters of the movie that should be emotionally affected don't have the appropriate reaction. Supposedly Logan had been dating Carrie Fisher (Andrea Estella) for some time before she was murdered,but we never see him really grieving her loss. Her existence (or rather her non-existence) seems to be, only, a tool for the movie to bring Logan and Veronica back in the same place (both physically and emotionally). Finally, as expected, i thought that there shouldn't be so many references to the show, but to be honest that wasn't such a big deal. I did like the one about how Leo (Max Greenfield) thought that Veronica had gone on to be an FBI or CIA or something agent, which was referring to a season 4 trailer (which only remained a trailer)(you can look for it on YouTube).
In conclusion, Veronica Mars is a pretty good stand-alone movie, but as former fan of the show i expected more from the movie.
Score: 67%
m.
Courtesy of
Warner Bros. Pictures
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