3.5 stars. Rating: Rated PG-13, for profanity, sexual content, drug content and violence
By Derrick Bang
Rob Thomas obviously is an
honorable fellow, and he deserves considerable credit.
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| Veronica (Kristen Bell) is surprised to discover that yet another intimate video of Logan (Jason Dohring) and his recently murdered girlfriend has been posted to the Internet, further swaying public opinion into believing that he's guilty of the crime. But this begs the more pressing question: Who shot this footage, and how? |
Mindful that his big-screen Veronica Mars project owes its very
existence to the crowd-funded Kickstarter campaign that raised $5.7 million,
Thomas — as director and co-scripter, sharing the latter credit with Diane
Ruggiero — did his very best to deliver a film that meets fan expectation and
smoothly updates events from the cherished 2004-07 TV series ... while also
functioning as a self-contained adventure that (hopefully) is approachable to
first-time viewers with no reference to the original show.
A tall order, and one that Thomas
mostly pulls off.
Full disclosure demands that I
acknowledge being one of the 91,585 Kickstarter backers, from 3,655 different
cities in 88 countries, who pledged some $$$ to help create this film. It made
perfect sense to me, since I’ve also (for example) supported PBS programming
with pledges since being old enough to write checks.
As one of the show’s longtime
fans — star Kristen Bell refers to us as “marshmallows” — I’m quite pleased by
the results. That said, this big-screen Veronica
Mars looks and feels less like a full-blown movie, and more like a two-part
television episode granted a bit more budgeting juice. I recall, back in the
day, that several of the 1960s Man from
UNCLE two-parters were re-cut and released theatrically, particularly in
foreign countries; this Veronica Mars
update shares that pedigree.
Back during Hollywood’s golden
age, this would have been a respectable B-feature. Nothing wrong with that;
indeed, many so-called B films are remembered far more fondly today, than the
higher-prestige A pictures with which they shared billing.
By way of contrast, the many Star Trek films that followed the
original show’s three 1960s seasons definitely look like big-screen
spectaculars quite far removed from their humbler TV origins. Joss Whedon’s Serenity, as well, granted impressively
opulent closure to the short-lived Firefly,
which had gone off the air several years earlier.
It’s an intriguing distinction,
perhaps having something to do with the modest, easily relatable sensibilities
that made Veronica’s television adventures so approachable in the first place.
Veronica also owed her quick popularity, in part, to good timing: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (also from
Whedon) had just gone off the air, and Thomas’ plucky high school heroine — and
the coterie of friends, frenemies and enemies she gradually accumulated —
admirably filled the niche left empty after Buffy had staked her last
blood-sucker.
