PAPER TOWNS DVD (2015)

SYNOPSIS: Ever since they were children, Quentin has been in love with his enigmatic neighbor Margo. So when Margo recruits Quentin for a prank-filled night of adventure, Quentin leaps at the opportunity. But next day, Margo suddenly disappears leaving behind cryptic clues for Quentin to decipher. When he goes on an epic road trip to find her, Quentin ultimately learns the true meaning of love & friendship.

MOVIE REVIEW:

John Green is fast becoming the next Nicholas Sparks. While the latter conquered the adults market with his tragic romance stories, the former won the heart of Hollywood with his YA novel The Fault In Our Stars being successfully turned into a movie hit.

Based on Green’s third YA novel and released a year after Stars is Paper Towns, a narratively flawed but otherwise light teen romance flick designed purely for the teen-centric crowd. The nerdy, awkward Quentin (Nat Wolff) has always love Margo (model turned actress Cara Delevingne) since they were kids. But their relationship has distanced since they reached high school until one night Margo appear to invite Quentin out for a night of adventure.

However after a night of pranking her ex-boyfriend and friends for cheating on her, Margo disappears. Determined to locate Margo after scouring through maps, traces of clues which she left behind and her ramblings about paper towns, Quentin and his group of best friends embark on a road trip to the state of New York hoping to find her before the start of school prom.

Paper Towns attempts to address popular teens issues such as friendship, prom woes, puppy love and many other coming-of-age stuff and most importantly that mysterious, popular girl in school. Margo is that girl who doesn’t know what she wants. She dislikes a normal life, hates routines and prefers to live life to the max. Even the movie itself doesn’t really find a satisfying solution for the character of Margo. But what it succeeds in portraying is the goofy, heartwarming friendship between Quentin and his two childhood buddies, the earnest Radar (Justice Smith) and the horny Ben (Austin Abrams). Their banter is genuinely funny, charming and you could feel their camaraderie coming through in the form of a Pokemon theme song.   

Nat Wolff is a natural, likeable actor if you have seen the young actor in Stars and Stuck In Love but it’s not really his fault when his chemistry with Delevingne seems stiff. It could be the very obvious fact that Delevingne only appears liked 20 minutes in the entire movie. At the very least, she is potentially an interesting actress to look out for.

Sorely lacking the emotional latch of The Fault In Our Stars, we thought there could be something more profound or meaningful to Paper Towns. As it turned out, it’s more of a sentimental dramedy road trip with a CGI cow thrown in. 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Writer John Green posed random questions to Nat Wolff in John and Nat: Lightning Round and Cara Delevingne in John and Cara: Lightning Round. Audio Commentary with Director Jake Schreier and Author John Green is a pretty entertaining piece as the duo shared plenty of anecdotes about the cast and movie making. There’s also a Photo Gallery and four brief Promotional Featurettes: Van Chats. 

AUDIO/VISUAL:

Dark shots appear to contain slight compression artifacts but generally on the whole, images are natural with fine detailing. Audio quality is near perfect as dialogue is clean and clear. Surround is underutilized except for occasional ambient effects. 

MOVIE RATING:

DVD RATING :

Review by Linus Tee