Kyle says: “I was
blindsided by the Warner Bros. credit and the endless crawl of topnotch
technical credits that seemed to contradict most of what I understand
about independent cinema, until in the end titles I read the
explanation of the Kickstarter fundraising campaign that had made this
movie possible. After doing a little research, I realized that this was
a follow up to a television series canceled seven years ago, made
possible by the good will of the show’s many fans, plus a distribution
deal with Warner Bros. Those fans were clearly overjoyed to have
Veronica Mars brought back from cancellation limbo. Whether anyone else
will want to sit through this hodgepodge of modernized Nancy Drew with
a nod to BRICK
and the pluckiness of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ is an interesting
question.
“Veronica (Kristen Bell) is about to be hired by a prestigious New York
law firm when she must return to her California hometown of Neptune to
help out her boyfriend of nine years ago Logan (Jason Dohring), who has
been charged with the murder of his rock star girlfriend. He is so
obviously clean-cut, a pillar of the community who looks spectacular in
his military dress whites, that there is no way he is guilty of the
murder. But plenty of other people in this trashy fictional Southern
California community could be, and Veronica must wade through the
possible suspects, most featured in the centerpiece of her return
visit: a high school reunion at which sex tapes of Veronica and Logan
are shown in an attack of viciousness that could only be the product of
high school resentments. High school is even compared to the Ninth
Circle of Hell. The most corrupt people of all are those charged with
maintaining law and order — the police of course. Eventually the truth
and the guilty miscreants are exposed, and Veronica decides to stay in
Neptune working for her father’s private investigatory firm.
”Aside from its importance to fans of the TV show, VERONICA MARS might
make an interesting double bill with the vastly superior BRICK, or
perhaps with an ancient Bonita Granville programmer such as NANCY DREW
…. TROUBLE SHOOTER (1939). It has two additional values: first, it
offers a vivid smart alecky treasury of the mannerisms and
colloquialisms of twenty-somethings circa 2014; and second, it features
a hilarious unbilled self-referential cameo by the ubiquitous James
Franco — referred to in a reference to his minimal degrees of
separation from just about everyone — who has apparently made off with
multiple tablets preloaded with spy software from Hollywood gift bags.
We are not far from a time when James Franco will likely be considered
useable as all eight parts of speech; he is already good for four or
five.
3 cats
“Seen Thursday, September 11, 2014, on HBO, Time Warner Cable of New
York.” |
