Movie Information
Release Date: March 14, 2014
Director: Rob Thomas
Writer: Rob Thomas, Diane Ruggiero
Cast: Kristen Bell, Jason Dohring, Chris Lowell, Percy Daggs III, Tina Majorino, Krysten Ritter, Martin Starr, Erico Colantoni, Baby Hoffmann, Ken Marino, Francis Capra, Amanda Noret, Ryan Hansen, Daran Norris, Max Greenfield, Jerry O’Connell, Duane Daniels, David Allen
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 107 minutes
By: Warner Brothers
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama
Language: English
Country: USA
Based off the popular TV series from a number of years ago and a successful kickstarter campaign, Veronica Mars finally hits the big screen. I didn’t know how I would feel about Ms. Mars since I’ve never watched a single episode of her in the past, or took to time to do any research of the material. Now I can honestly say after watching the film I care about her character and maybe interested in finding out a little bit more. I didn’t feel this way initially or during my drive home from the theater, but after thinking about it for a while it’s hard not to be fond of her.
In its beginning I give high praise to a few minutes of recap from previous seasons for those not knowing her origin. It was well paced, organized, and had lots of personality and charisma. After the intro’s conclusion I felt like I was with the rest of the audience knowing exactly who she was and where she came from and that’s a great place to start. As I got to know Veronica, I started to call her a robot with emotion. She’s like a statue when necessary but throws out the snarky dialogue and sarcasm when forced to. Behavior like this can only come from a good upbringing that credit goes solely to her father. Once I learned of her tragic misfortune in her younger years it’s clear the relationship she had with her father brought life back into her. I loved their relationship as it warm, loving, and genuine. He’s the type of father most would like, that’s engaged enough in his child’s life giving love and support, but not overly protective also trying to be her best friend. Who wants that? Not me. It hard not to like Veronica Mars with all of her positive characteristics. She’s smart, strong, bold, classy, beautiful, hilarious, and that’s just to name a few. As I’ve stated I did love Veronica’s character and the relationship that she had with her father, but the rest of the film not so much.
Veronica’s hit show was during her high school years and now she’s a young adult in her upper 20’s. The problem is that the supporting cast still acts like they’re in high school for some reason. She’s surrounded by other previous classmates that are in between the years of 28-29 but they don’t act like it. There’s still silly mean girl drama that should’ve flushed away with all the other crap we have to go through in high school but that toilet was clogged. I still get men with lame pick-up lines doing pelvic thrust to women faces and nods to silly gossiping. Young adults don’t act like this anymore nor does the local police chief down at the station. He’s overtop freely blurting out his diabolical plan as if he has no care in the world. If I were going to rob a bank I wouldn’t tell everyone. He doesn’t rob a bank in Veronica Mars but acts likes he’s invincible to all. It’s laughable and reminds me of the corniest scenes from the scream franchise.
Veronica does have a love interest or love triangle if I may say. Her decision here is extremely frustrating because the audience isn’t given a clue on why she went in this direction and lacks any chemistry to defend it. If I had to watch the previous television series to get this answer that’s a negative because In my opinion it could’ve been easily written in but isn’t from some reason.
Some of the plot devices are creative but very convenient to bring the story to the ending, but for a TV show made movie it’s nothing to cry over. I can easily see why this was made for the big screen, because if Veronica’s personality is fleshed out over multiple seasons with more meat on the bone, I can’t imagine how you wouldn’t cater to her. Unfortunately the supporting cast didn’t contain the same energy she possessed and the plot as a whole suffered quite a bit from this.