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The first twenty minutes absolutely blew me away, totally enjoyable, when she'd disappeared I honestly thought it was going to be a kind of Gone Girl thriller, wrong, it fell somewhere between Road Trip and the Goonies. After adjusting to what essentially became a teenage road trip movie I kind of enjoyed it, there were some entertaining moments. I couldn't help feeling a little bit robbed, it had been set up so well, it literally felt like a different film after her disappearance.

The ending at least was one that decided not to pander to audience satisfaction, a little sour but interesting. As always with this kind of film the usual clichés are there in full, point zero as is the rule is the prom, they always have to be motivated by the prom.

Interesting casting, Nat Wolff was very good as Quentin, he didn't overplay it, very enjoyable. I will applaud the decision to cast Cara as Margo, maybe not the top of many lists but I felt her personality and natural self gave Margo her enigma and mysterious edge, I thought she was very good, the accent slipped to English on a few occasions, but that can be forgiven, I hope it's a springboard for her I like her.

6/10 It was good, it should have been so much more.

Coming on the heels of its commercially-successful predecessor, 'The Fault in Our Stars', PAPER TOWNS is no heavy tearjerker, but it echoes more affectionate and piercing sentiments, with its lighter, minimalist take of its recognizable subjects.

The film follows Quentin (Nat Wolff) , or "Q" as he is more popularly called, a highschool boy who has been nursing an unrequited love for the girl living next door, Margo (Cara Delevigne) since childhood. Even after when they turn 12, when Margo suddenly becomes distant, "Q" never loses the affection, and it only becomes even stronger when one day she climbs again to his window, the way she did when they were still kids. The next events follow an eager "Q" savoring the moment as he escorts Margo in her series of "small revenge" against those she thinks have betrayed her, including her ex-boyfriend. But the levitating moment would only last overnight, because the next day, the ever mystifying Margo, disappears.

Mining on the same overly familiar material that dwells on both coming-of-age and teenage romance territories, PAPER TOWNS pulls off two easily-recognizable efforts: maintaining 'The Fault's charm, while toning down its tragic notions. The latter of which, yields a more tangible and heartwarming result, capable of conjuring a lasting tug at the heartstrings. The credit for this goes to its equally-charming yet capable actors, both of whom teeming with fresh and enigmatic likability. It will also sound unforgivable to never pay regard to the film's brilliant screenwriters who manage to cleverly highlight this extremely familiar highschool tale's stronger and more relatable sentiments, genuinely and sincerely enough, to bend fragile emotions with crippling capacity.

"Q"'s road trip in finding Margo represents a bigger journey with far wider scope and meaning, and it comes across as a process of personal exploration that unknowingly liberates one self, toward finding the deeper sense of their existence. Hardly that the questions thrown get resolved, but the charming and sincere take of its proceedings, will ultimately make the narrative arrive to a satisfying conclusion. This doesn't mean it's able to satisfy its own queries, but the resolution delivered are nonetheless, reliable and honest.

PAPER TOWNS will come across as a witty, yet touching case of a 'lost and found'. Much of it is spent in searching for the 'lost', a liberating process that frees its seekers from every question that unfolds in the wake of a previous other, but the 'found', though never really answers any of the previous questions, will deliver a surprisingly satisfying, and never less of a rewarding, answer.

"Paper Towns" is that kid in the lunchroom who acts different and seems cool but it isn't until you talk to him that you realize he adheres to all the social conventions and routines of life that you thought he was rebelling against. It's the kind of film that feels like it was written by an adolescent girl cherrypicking reblogged Tumblr quotes from her wall to suffice as the theme for the film. It's the kind of film you'll love if you find the idea of "getting lost to find yourself" a profound concept.

"Paper Towns," finally, is the kind of film where the love interest is named Margo Roth Spiegelman (Cara Delevingne), whose vacuous personality is mistaken for mystery and enigma. She is defined by her absent gazes into the world, her love for "random capitalization" in her writing because "the rules are so unfair to the letters in the middle of words," and her statements about her town, Orlando, Florida, being a paper town with "paper houses and paper people."

She also happens to be the apple of Quentin's (the former "Naked Brothers Band" lead singer Nat Wolff) eye since she moved in his subdivision when they were young; he considers living next to her his sole miracle in life. However, the two have significantly drifted since their youthful days of innocence, until one night when Margo climbs into his window and says that she has nine things to do that night and needs a getaway driver. Stunned that the love of his life has waltzed through his window for the first time in years, Quentin takes Margo and peels off in his minivan to exact revenge on Margo's cheating boyfriend and her friends who didn't help her in her time of need.

Upon having the greatest night of his life, Quentin wakes up the next morning and sees Margo isn't at school that day, and eventually, notices she's missing the entire week. Her parents aren't concerned, for Margo does this a lot, but Quentin and his friends - the incessant Ben (Austin Abrams) and the geeky "Radar" (Justice Smith) - begin to uncover clues as to why Margo may have disappeared and where to. With that, the three teens, including Margo's best friend Lacey (Halston Sage) and Radar's girlfriend Angela (Jaz Sinclair), try to track down her whereabouts.

"Paper Towns"'s immediate problem is it's nowhere as intelligent or witty as it thinks it is. Its themes are all rehashed to the point of breeding contempt and its characters, particularly Margo, are so broadly drawn that they work against the film, which is clearly trying to breathe that fabled freshness into the teen film genre (it always feels like Quentin's going to stop the film with his narration saying the dreaded "this isn't your average teen movie" line).

Strangely, though, the most contemptible character throughout this whole film is Margo for more reasons than her empty personality. She's the kind of person who thinks it's okay to drop her friends and family without giving them any inkling as to what's wrong with her because she's trying to find herself. Finally, when somebody does something for her, particularly Quentin, she takes it with a grain of salt and goes about selfishly trying to advance herself rather than consider what she means to others. She's on the verge of growing up and being Amy Schumer's Amy character from "Trainwreck," a contemptible, lost soul who takes advantage of people she meets.

Furthermore, the humor of "Paper Towns" is another thing that's frustrating. One moment, the film is trying to wow you with a "deep" dialogue about what lies beneath the surface of people, and the next, a character accidentally spills a can in which he urinated into all over himself and his friends. Once more, this is a film that's trying to be one thing but can't escape what it ultimately is: trite, frequently immature, and mostly empty exercise that has nothing revolutionary to say despite thinking it does.

However, don't fault the cast here, for they clearly give it their best shot. Their energy and charisma bring to life more than writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber (who wrote "The Spectacular Now," a film you should see instead of this one) do. Nat Wolff, an actor I've consistently admired for his good-natured, everyboy appearance and personality, does strong work here in that realm and is assisted by capable performers like Smith and Sage (Delevingne would likely be better if she had a character to play).

"Paper Towns" is cut from the same cloth as "The Fault in Our Stars" (author John Green, who wrote the book on which this film is based, also wrote that one and Neustadter and Weber also penned that screenplay) in that it tries to take a different direction for its adolescent characters but crumbles under the lackluster deviations from reality it so often takes. On top of that, unlike "The Fault in Our Stars," which was burdened by sentimentality and cringeworthy attempts at a perceived coolness, "Paper Towns" winds up being precisely what it didn't want to be - a paper film.

Quentin Jacobsen is an Orlando high school senior with a small comfort zone. He's a band geek with his best friends Ben and Radar. Margo has been living across the street for 11 years. They were friends when she first arrived. They found a dead body but he refused to follow her adventures and they drifted apart. Now suddenly, she climbs into his window. She pulls him into a night of revenge against her cheating boyfriend and her backstabbing friends. She's gone the next day but she has left clues for Quentin to find her paper town. Quentin, Ben, Radar, Radar's girlfriend Angela, and Margo's friend Lacey go on a road trip.

Cara Delevingne shows competent acting and a good intriguing presence which is necessary for the role. The movie starts with her taking our lead on a nice adventure. It has its moments. I like those one-night adventures in movies. Then there is the mystery which is less compelling because I'm mostly waiting for the inevitable road trip. I also like a good road trip and this one has its moments, too. The movie ends with a nice 'lesson'. Everything is fair but nothing is outstanding. The three guys are nice but lacks great charisma. They are more and less regular teens which has its appeal. I like their friendship. As a book, I'm sure this has many fans. As a movie, it needs more adventures and more cinematic excitement. It could have tightened the middle and added more to the road trip when the group is together. This is fine but it could have been much better.

"What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person."

Thanks to the worldwide success of The Fault in Our Stars which was adapted from John Green's 2012 novel, the producers have decided to adapt some of his earlier work as well. Teaming up with the same screenwriters, Michael Weber and Scott Neustadter, casting Nat Wolff again (although this time as the lead), and hiring a new director, Jake Schreier (Robot and Frank), they had everything in place and ready to adapt Green's 2008 novel, Paper Towns, with the hopes of banking on the author's current fanbase. Although Paper Towns is similarly aimed towards a teen audience, it is very different from The Fault in Our Stars. It's a coming of age story that includes some mystery elements and ends up turning into a road trip movie. So despite following certain generic conventions in the teen genre it does manage to mix things up a bit and that was something I enjoyed. Everything else about Paper Towns including its characters are pretty familiar.

The film begins as a typical boy becomes infatuated with girl story, but it soon develops into much more than that. In Paper Towns this boy is Quentin (Nat Wolff) and the girl next door he falls for is Margo (Cara Delevinge). They shared a friendly past, the two hung out together as kids, but when they became older Margo's adventurous and wild behavior didn't go along with Quentin's much risk free and calm demeanor. During their senior year of High School, Margo was on her way to being the prom queen, while he was just the kids that went unnoticed. His two best friends, Radar (Justice Smith) and Ben (Austin Abrams), were aware of his obsession over her, but he never acted upon it. One night, Margo climbs through his window using her ninja skills as she used to when they were kids, and asks him to join her on one last mission. Apparently her boyfriend has been cheating on her with her best friend and she wants to get some payback. She asks him to drive her around on his mother's minivan and after the successful mission Quentin admits never having felt so much fun before. The next day, hopeful to resume his new found friendship with Margo he discovers that she has gone missing, but she has left some clues behind for him. With the help of Radar and Ben the three begin to try to solve the mystery of Margo's disappearance. Lacey (Halston Sage), one of Margo's closest friends, also decides to join the kids in trying to find her since they seem to be the only ones worried about her.

Michael Weber and Scott Neustadter are definitely the two screenwriters you want to hire for adapting teen based novels. This is perhaps their weakest effort, but it still stands above most other teen rom-coms. 500 Days of Summer and The Spectacular Now were both very well written screenplays with interesting characters and relationships, while The Fault in Our Stars banked on the the strong chemistry between Woodley and Elgort. Wolff in that film delivered most of the comedic scenes, but here he downplays his character and lets Abrams deliver most of the funny quirky scenes. Delevinge embodies her wild character pretty well, but considering she is missing throughout most of the movie she doesn't get much screen time. That is what makes Paper Towns such a rare teen romance because the girl is missing throughout most of the story and the focus is on Quentin's quest to find her. It's more about idealizing the other person and discovering that in reality they are simply a person. The mystery and the road trip is what makes this film stand out from other films in the genre and it makes the ride all that more enjoyable, but when compared to other coming of age films it probably ranks in the middle. The film shares some similarities with The Girl Next Door, which was a film I enjoyed a lot more probably because I was younger when I saw it. Paper Towns is a film for teens and if you're not in that target audience you might find it a bit difficult to enjoy. There is one scene in the movie that reminded me of this when during a cameo all the teen girls in the audience sighed at the sight of him.

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