Just like with “The Wind Rises” this is a film that die-hard fans will enjoy much more than the uninitiated. Unlike “The Wind Rises,” this movie is the very first wide release to be “crowd-funded” (through Kickstarter) meaning that I really hope die-hard fans enjoy it since they’re essentially paying for the same movie twice, once to get it made and once to see it in theaters.
What Works: Will fans of the cancelled (and more than slightly-overrated) UPN TV show enjoy this? Almost certainly. It’s got more or less the entire cast of the series showing up for a plot that involves a deceased former classmate, a love triangle, police corruption, and a ten year high school reunion. Even if all of these threads feel slightly forced together—-the police corruption barely fits into the larger murder plot, which just so happens to coincide with a high school reunion?—-I don’t think fans will be complaining since this is pretty much their wish-list project. The best way to look at this is as an above-average TV show reunion that is in theaters instead of for free at your home. And the show’s not the only thing returning from the dead: Gabby Hoffman (the tween star that has been largely absent from pop culture for a while) steals her few scenes as an obsessed fan.
What Doesn’t Work: With all the acclaim being showered on excellent dramatic series these days, does it really make sense to bring back Veronica Mars as a movie? Easy as it is to forget, Movies and TV are different mediums and I don’t think Veronica Mars is the easiest to translate into a movie. [“24” and “Arrested Development” would have made sense but they’re getting revivals on TV, not the big screen…a “Rome” movie or even “Deadwood” would also make sense.] I think an eight to ten episode Netflix revival probably would have been a better fit.
And I have to be honest in saying that I never really understood the fanatical love of this show in the first place. It’s a slightly hokey UPN-invention that is only tweaking genre conventions of teenage detectives with a few wisecracks. This was never the best show on TV, it was derivative to start with (anything that requires an understanding of genre conventions to seem better than them isn’t something that can stand on its own) and it was on for three seasons that only got worse as they kept going. It’s hard to see this as the property that desperately needs reviving.
The movie itself is only a standard airport-paperback thriller with a few extra wisecracks layered into it. I didn’t understand all the love for “hot” Logan at all since he’s about as lively/interesting as a corpse and it’s unintentionally creepy that he’d be ready to hook up with Veronica days after his wife’s death. [It’s also never even mentioned.] I’m also afraid of the “crowd funding” aspect. I can imagine a future in which all independent movies have to raise their money this way, and we’re asked to pay for movies to get made before we really even know if they’ll ever be released.
What I Would Have Done Differently: Sometimes properties must end. And as much as people like to complain about cancelled shows, the truth is that there are a lot more shows that are on the air for too long rather than too short.