If they haven’t already, dedicated fans of Veronica Mars who raised 5.7 million dollars on Kickstarter to help fund a movie based on the CW television series will discover that it was worth every penny.
The television series of the same name was canceled in 2007 after three seasons. While this is not the first movie that became a reality due to high fan demand, it is notable for being an early pioneer in the mainstreaming of crowd funding.
Here’s the thing about fan demand movies and crowd funded content in general. It’s great for the people who have already bought in, but if you don’t happen to be a fan, it can be a gamble. Is my time and money worth it? That’s the question every non-fan asks.
For this very reason I knowingly tried to insulate myself. I missed the show when it first aired and fought off months of recommendations to stream the show. All I knew going in was that the show was a sort of noir with the titular private investigator.
With this as my only foundation, I mistakenly expected something either bleak or juvenile. Gladly, I watched a movie that kept me engaged and had just enough style.
The mystery is pretty simple and serves to reunite a host of people from Veronica Mars’ fictional Southern California town of Neptune. The story finds Veronica (Kristin Bell) out of law school interviewing for jobs. The message is clear, she’s moved on from her sleuthing habits that a quick prologue details. The tragic death of a high school classmate whose murder is pinned on Veronica’s ex-boyfriend Logan (Jason Dohring) ropes her back into her old ways.
The greatest strength of the movie is its characterization. With so much ground to cover in terms of fitting characters from the show, the movie never has characters overstay their welcome and manages to at least give new viewers a sense of the people that are interacting on screen. In a theater full of Veronica Mars fans, what to me was a small character tick or reveal, was to them a call back to the relationship that grew over years while watching the show.
This movie will please the fans of the show and will introduce many more to the engrossing world of a west coast girl investigator. This is a world I wouldn’t mind returning to. The chances of me going back to watch the now seven-year-old show are pretty high.
Veronica Mars is now showing at AMC Mayfair Mall 18.