Movie Review: Paper Towns

The same movie again but still good

Paper Towns (2015): After an all night adventure, Quentin's life-long crush, Margo, disappears, leaving behind clues that Quentin and his friends follow on the journey of a lifetime.

Man am I a sucker for the coming of age film. So first of all, let me point out that I am writing this review with my brand new keyboard, and it is gorgeous. I'll throw in a picture at the bottom of this review, but it is a mechanical keyboard, and it is wonderful for typing. If you are looking for a new keyboard this holiday season and you type a lot, do yourself a favor and look into mechanical keyboards. So to say I am in a good mood is definitely an understatement! And, fortunately for me, I am able to talk about a movie that was actually pretty good today! So the young adult novel genre is an absolute mess right now. There's no doubt. However, we often get about one film a year from the genre that is a phenomenal film. Films like If I Stay and The Fault In Our Stars are past year winners. This year's winner is very likely going to be Paper Towns. While this is kind of damning with feint praise, it's still praise nonetheless. Why? Because it's pretty much the exact same film as the ones I just mentioned. So, let's jump into it, shall we?

So let's first highlight the good stuff. The acting! The acting is excellent. This film went the route of using relative unknowns in the main roles, but they won't stay unknown for long. Nat Wolff and Cara Delevingne were excellent in their main roles, and I also really enjoyed Justice Smith in his supporting role as Radar. Everyone else, though, was just ok. The comedic relief character was extremely overwhelming, and his love story is rather poorly written and seemed to be just thrown together at the last minute. Speaking of story, I actually fairly enjoyed this one. Yes, it's pretty much the exact same story as previous young adult novel films. Ok, maybe not pretty much the same. It's exactly the same. I'm sorry guys, but everyone must admit that these young adult novels are pretty much exactly the same. But it's still fun to me! (Maybe that's why they make so much money) Margo is an extremely well-written main character, even though I would never buy that that character would actually exist in high school for a second. College maybe, but not high school. But I'll let that one slide. Ok I'm probably gonna let a lot of things slide with this movie. Moving on.

Well, let's now focus on the bad things. First off, the film is pretty visually boring. There's no editing whatsoever, and the b-roll is pretty lame. The film supposedly took place in Orlando, but the city is featured so little it really could've been any city. I would've had no idea it was Orlando were it not for the main characters mentioning it over and over. But the main problem with this film is that it is not even remotely new. As I said, we've seen this story over and over. The novelty of this genre has long worn off, and that's definitely going to turn some people off. But I'm fine with it. So suck it.

Honestly, there's not a whole lot else to say about this film. It's a good film, in my opinion, but it's only good because I enjoy the coming-to-age film within this heavily overused genre. It's pretty freaking hard to screw these stories up for me, and thus this is the best film this genre has to offer this year thus far. Maybe The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 will change my mind, but the whole PART TWO: THE EPIC CONCLUSION PART SEVENTY thing really pisses me off so I won't hold my breath. But that's all I got here. If you like a good coming-of-age film, then this one's for you. If you don't care, then don't bother. You're welcome. Just saved you 109 minutes.

The Critique: Yet another entry into a saturated genre, Paper Towns attempts to separate itself from the pack by doing the exact same thing as the rest of them. However, it's still good.

The Recommendation: If you care about this genre you've probably already seen this film. If not, if you're looking for a good coming-of-age film definitely go out of your way to see it. If not? Don't bother.

Rewatchability: Moderately Low

​The Verdict: 7/10 Good.


Image Credit
http://freshfromthetheatre.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/papertowns.png

My beautiful new keyboard! And mouse! (Corsair K95 RGB keyboard and Corsair M65 RGB Mouse)