Film Review -Veroncia Mars
Directed by Rob Thomas
Screen play by Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero
Cast: Kristen Bell, Chris Lowell, Jason Dohring, Enrico Colantino, Andrea Estella
Stars ***
The movie continues nine years after the events of the Veronica Mars show’s third season. Former teenage sleuth, Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell) has left the fictional town of Neptune, California and moved to New York City.
In NYC she find herself in a stable relationship with Stosh “Piz” Piznarskiand (Chris Lowell) and has a job offer from a prestigious law firm called Truman-Mann and Associates. One call from her ex-boyfriend Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring) has her packing to travel back to Neptune. Logan has been accused of murdering his girlfriend Carrie Bishop (Andrea Estella), a fellow Neptune High student who became a successful but self-destructive pop star under the stage name “Bonnie DeVille”.
Logan is swarmed by offers from lawyers wanting to represent him, and Veronica agrees to help Logan find one who will best defend him. She is reunited with her father Keith Mars (Enrico Colantino), Neptune’s former sheriff-turned-private investigator, who shows her how corruption and class distinction is rife under Sheriff Dan Lamb.
Despite the promise that her stay will be brief and that she will remain uninvolved in the case, Veronica begins to investigate the circumstances of Carrie’s death. During her investigation, Veronica is dragged to her ten-year high school reunion by friends Wallace Fennell (Percy Daggs III) and Cindy “Mac” MacKenzie (Tina Majorino). There she learns that former outlaw biker Eli “Weevil” Navarro (Francis Capra) is now a reformed family man.
During the reunion, Veronica realizes Carrie’s murder is connected to the death of her best friend, Susan Knight (Christine Lakin), who disappeared off a boat at sea nine years earlier. After Veronica’s nemesis Madison Sinclair (Amanda Noret) plays a copy of Veronica’s college sex tape with Piz, a fight breaks out and the reunion comes to an abrupt end.
The boat death eventually turns into a pivotal event from which the new murder sprang, as well as the chain of cover ups.
Veronica concludes that someone killed Carrie because she threatened to confess. The story takes an interesting turn as Veronica’s suspicions are proven wrong but she is adamant to get to the bottom of the mystery.
This movie is quite simple, it required no imagination. The characters and acting are good, but perhaps it is the idea of having a narrator explain every detail that I found intrusive. Maybe I didn’t feel the excitement I should because I haven’t followed the Veronica Mars series right from the beginning, years ago when it was a series.
By the half way mark I was ready for the movie to be done. It’s a movie to watch when there is absolutely nothing else interesting to watch. I do like the idea that a young woman with very limited resources could unravel a case with the help of her friends, but it could have been a little more interesting and captivating for the viewer.
The new Veronica Mars has not been released in Namibia yet but travellers to South Africa can watch it there on the cine circuit. Otherwise, Veronica Mars fans, for the time being, have to be content watching it as a pirate copy on a memory stick.
