Quick PointsMovie vs. Book
BOOK! The book touches on topics that are much deeper than "am I going to make it to Prom in time?"
Soundtrack/Score
Not memorable. Sorry Nat.
Favorite Scenes
The gas station and Pokemon.
Audience Reactions while Watching the Movie
I'm not kidding--the gas station scene and the moment the kids break out into the Pokemon theme song were the only times the movie solicited laughs and cheers.
If you remember my very first movie review, I was a decently sized fan of The Fault in Our Stars (both book and movie), so when I heard that another book by John Green was hitting the big screen, I hit the books. Once again, Green did not disappoint. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the movie adaptation.
Looking at the film version of Paper Towns as a completely different entity from the book (as I've had to do with so many books-to-movies), it was cliche. Typical social outcast Quentin (played by Nat Wolff, who made a better secondary character in Fault in our Stars), is secretly in love with the hot and popular girl next door, Margo (played--though just barely because she's missing for half of the movie--by Cara Delevingne), but she hasn't given him the time of day since they found that dead body when they were little kids (the only non-cliche scene). The night before Margo disappears, she teams up one last time with Q, and the two get revenge on all of their shallow friends and bullies while almost (but of course, not quite) admitting their true feelings for each other. Then she's gone, and Q guilt trips the only two friends that are dorky enough to hang out with him into helping him find her. You even get the classic argument that always leads to the friends abandoning the main character--"The woman I love but have never expressed my feelings towards are more important than your long-term girl friend and your honey-bunny who's desperate for a Prom Date!"
All that being said, the ending's not a complete cliche. Though, it's not a complete non-cliche, either. You get just the tiniest bit of "You're really going to do that?" before going back to "Ahh, familiar grounds." Which is really sad because try as hard as you might to separate the book from the movie, if you read the novel, you knew what these characters were capable of. Maybe if new director Jake Schreier had been able to give more time for the characters to show their true bonds with one another (I don't know how many times I have to stress that the gas station and Pokemon theme song scenes were amazing!), the plot would have made more sense and seemed more real.
As is, I waited until Paper Towns was almost gone from theaters before posting this review for a reason. While I do always believe in supporting local authors, I also believe that this movie is not worth $10. Maybe you could catch a cheap matinee? Or even just wait until it comes out to Redbox.
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What did you think of the movie? Comment below!
