Veronica Mars

As I write this, The Mandalorian & Grogu is in its opening week, and judging by the painfully low projected box office totals and the weak review scores, it will go down as another TV-to-movie transition that failed to understand the key factor in being successful: don't just be more of the TV show. Star Trek, South Park, Beavis & Butt-head, Mission: Impossible, they were all made with the knowledge that going to the big screen meant going bigger, taking advantage of the medium not only in size and scale but in opportunity. They answered the question "why is this a movie instead of a couple episodes of a show?", a question that tripped up other attempts like The X-Files or The Simpsons, or currently, the aforementioned Mandalorian. Which brings us to the Veronica Mars movie. The show (something I've been enduring lately while my wife satisfies her girl-crush on Kristen Bell) was a minor cult hit in the 2000's, about a teenage girl who is the daughter of a PI. She takes it upon herself to also be a PI, especially in the wake of the murder of her best friend, a case she believes the police botched. The show was cancelled after three seasons, but a Kickstarter brought it back to life for a reunion movie and, a few years later, a fourth season, tying off the loose threads the cancellation created. Fine and dandy. Hell, it's probably better that way than what The X-Files tried to do with its first movie. But the thing you have to understand about Veronica Mars the show is that, if you're blinded by fan goggles, the sad reality is it is a messy show. The dialogue is snappy and Bell is the charismatic gravitational force holding it all together, but the writing overall is a train wreck. Everybody speaks like they're a pop culture version of Wikipedia come to life, regardless of whether the reference makes sense for the character. Every character sounds the same, so even though their actions are different, it still amounts to one voice. Every episode featured at least three sub-plots: Veronica's case-of-the-week, Veronica trying to solve the season-long mystery arc, and her love and social life. Sometimes her dad would have a case, so there's a potential fourth, and maybe one of the supporting characters had their own arc, so five. Each episode is a hurricane of activity, and it all seems to distract from while also adding the show's chaotic nature. It is not an elegant, or elegantly written show. It is ADHD Nancy Drew for mid-aughts teenagers. I lay all this out because I have to in order to discuss the flaws of the movie. That frenetic, frenzied pacing of the show helped to distract from the show's glaring writing faults (even if my wife and spotted them all the time and made a bingo game out of it). One could feasibly overlook them or even outright miss them when the show was ping-ponging from plotline to plotline. Veronica Mars the movie does not have that luxury. It has an hour and forty five (with credits) to tell its story. There is no time for helping some down-on-their-luck rando find his missing thingy or whatever. There's only time for the mystery and Veronica's love life, which are, as usual with the show, intertwined. This trimming of the fat doesn't mean the mystery is deepened or the characters are more richly drawn; it means the cracks that the breakneck speed of the show barely papered over are now chasms the movie trips over. Creator and writer Rob Thomas' ability to write mysteries are exposed as unnecessarily convoluted and lore-dependent. You have to have an encyclopedic knowledge to know that this movie calls back to a couple characters that were in a couple episodes apiece and ties them altogether in a mystery relies on contrivances and coincidences the way a coma patient relies on a respirator. It also needs the world-reset button to be hit with the force of Thor's hammer; somehow, the small town elects yet another nakedly corrupt sheriff who'd avoid his job at all costs, and will persecute the most convenient suspects (or even plant evidence) to expedite "justice" and justify his election. This is necessary so that Veronica can be the oracular genius she is and wave away the obvious question of why the cops couldn't reach the same conclusion. There is no coincidence too big, no accident too fortuitous, for Veronica Mars the movie to whip up in an effort to grease the plot skids for Veronica to be the smartest person in town. And I haven't even touched on how the whole plot is Logan's THIRD TIME being accused of murder over the course of the show and movie. That is supremely, unfathomably lazy writing. IF that weren't bad enough, the movie's streamlining also brings into stark relief something I'm sure ardent fans will not like to even consider: Veronica Mars is a shitty person. She's not multi-layered, she's not flawed but relatable, she's a rotten person. She constantly uses her friends for favors that border on (and sometimes cross the border) exploitative while never being there for them, she says she loves her father more than anybody but constantly manipulates and lies to him, and she ends up leaving her fiance for her on-again-off-again ex from high school because they were in proximity. A relationship that was as volatile as nitro-glycerin, that constantly featured lies, secrets, cheating, mistrust, and legalities that the universe keeps sending them to say "you two do not belong together". Nope, Veronica Mars forces them together because ... happy ending somehow? And even has the audacity to have a brief monologue at the end to somehow justify nuking the life she'd built since leaving her horrible small town? I'm sure I'm spitting in the wind with this. The fans I've encountered of this show would excuse probably any plot development short of Veronica becoming a serial killer. It's one of those kinds of shows where the fanbase eats up everything there is to offer, unquestioningly and gleefully. And that's fine. Good for them. But for the rest of us who don't have fanboy glasses on, Veronica Mars the movie is a huge step down from a show that is already not as good as its cult status warrants. It may take advantage of the big screen format to be a streamline its style and use some swear words, and Kristen Bell is, as always, the thing holding this all from spinning out, but the venue also elevates its flaws from negligible to crippling. If you're a fan, you've already seen this, no doubt, and think it walks on water. But if you've watched some of the show and weren't in love with it to begin with, you'll want to stop before you get here. This is the kind of revival that can retroactively kill what came before.