Veronica Mars. Mars. The god of War.
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It’s not an easy name to live up to. You might as well name your protagonist “Death, the Destroyer of Worlds”. There’s a certain expectation that goes with a name like that, an expectation I wasn’t sure could be met by a small town girl from Neptune, CA who goes sleuthing on the side.
Besides Veronica’s name, I had zero expectations. I assume the primary target audience for this movie was fans of the show. The secondary target audience was people that had never seen the show, and that includes me. So I didn’t know Veronica’s deal or anything about her world. Would she actually... Go to war?
Turns out, she does. She goes to war against the entire Neptune police department (defund the police! Wait... That’s not a thing anymore? Then let’s go back to FUCK tha police!). As cool as that is, it’s not even her main battle. Veronica’s real war is against... Judd Apatow.
Not literally. He’s not in the movie, and none of the characters ever mention him. But his idea of what makes a human adult pervades Veronica’s idea of what makes a human adult. You see, as hilarious as they can sometimes be, Judd Apatow’s films present a very unified story of what an ‘adult’ is: A person with a stable source of income and a monogamous romantic relationship. Around these parts, we have a word for that:
Normal.
Judd Apatow thinks that, to be an adult, you have to be normal.
At the start of the movie, Veronica thinks this as well. She’s in monogamous relationship. She is about to secure a stable source of income by being hired on as an attorney at a prestigious New York Law firm. It’s all there... All that normal is right within her grasp.
Then she gets a call from her ex. He’s been accused of murder, and he wants her to come back to Neptune and help him out. And the war fucking begins.
The income starts slipping away. She’s supposed to start her new job in two days! Every day she spends wearing her old “private detective” mask is a day she risks upsetting her new bosses and possibly being fired. She can’t play hide the salami with her ex-boyfriend... But she wants to. The threads to her New York boyfriend become stretched and frazzled as the chemistry with her ex sparks anew (even if the chemistry is pretty one sided. Her ex boyfriend... Isn’t the greatest actor. He’s pretty wooden. But, you know what? Veronica is awesome enough to do the chemical heavy lifting for the both of them). All that normal starts to slide away.
She sees it, too. She talks about it in the worst way possible: Voiceover. Voiceover is, in general, lazy and terrible, and “Veronica Mars” isn’t an exception to this rule... Except for one little tidbit in Veronica’s stream of consciousness that I did appreciate. As the idea normal falls away, she starts likening her need to be a private eye to an addiction. She’s *addicted* to mystery. Do you know how she knows it’s an addiction? It’s destructive. Not only is she risking her monogamous relationship and stable source of income, she’s literally putting herself and her friends in danger.
And she decides it’s worth it.
Ho. Lee. Shit.
Don’t get me wrong... I am NOT advocating this position. I do not think somebody should get themselves addicted to anything (heroin, alcohol, gambling, etc, etc) just to avoid being normal. Addictive behavior *is* destructive. But, you know what? Being normal is pretty lame. Sorry, normies, it is. I will grant you that Veronica’s assertion that addiction is preferable to normalcy is *dangerous*... But that’s why I like it. It’s why *SHE* likes it. It’s subversive (designed to undermine and overthrow established institutions... In this case it’s undermining the foundation of JuddApatowLand). I wouldn’t have thought that a movie about a private eye wannabe could be so reckless... And intoxicating. A lot like addiction itself.
There are flaws with the movie. Too much voiceover. The acting ranges all over the spectrum from awesome (Kristen Bell as Veronica) to pretty weak (Jason Dohring as her ex). There are too many exposition dumps. You know what? That stuff doesn’t matter.
What matters is, when ragnarknock comes knocking, which banner are you going to fight for? I’ll fight for Veronica Mars, the goddess of War.
2/10