'Chronicle' Review (2012)
It's like an episode of 'Heroes' without all the mumbo-jumbo
Photo: 20th Century Fox
When it comes to story, Chronicle is about as simple as they come. If you've seen the trailer you're already aware three high schoolers stumble upon a hole in the ground and after being exposed to whatever is down there they begin to enjoy a growing form of telekinesis that only gets stronger the more they use it. As the film progresses one of the boys turns to the dark side and things go wonky from there. The end.
The cast includes Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, Michael B. Jordan, Michael Kelly and Ashley Hinshaw. For more information on this film including pictures, trailers and a detailed synopsis choose from the following menu.
Review
"Chronicle" is a 20th Century Fox release, directed by Josh Trank and is rated PG-13 for intense action and violence, thematic material, some language, sexual content and teen drinking. The running time is 1 hour 23 minutes.
Things only change when Andrew buys a camera to begin documenting his day-to-day life. In the beginning, though, the camera isn't winning him any popularity contests with the bullying at school continuing and the cheerleaders calling him "creepy". It's only at a party when his cousin and the senior class big shot, Steve (Michael B. Jordan), find the hole I mentioned earlier and need the light on his camera to go down in that the camera seems to actually serve a purpose. From there, Andrew feels the need to "document" their powers and the camera remains a part of the story from that point forward.
I will, however, give Josh Trank some credit for how he dealt with the "found footage" aspect of this film. Trank tells the story with the understanding that any camera catching the action can be used, not only the one being operated by protagonist. This includes surveillance cameras, Andrew's camera, video phones from bystanders and such. Of course, it is still ridiculous how often Andrew is actually filming and where he takes the camera, such as a late night pouting session 30,000 feet in the air. Combine that with an equally obsessive camera operator played by Ashley Hinshaw, who is constantly filming even if it's just to open the front door, and you're well beyond ridiculous. But, for what it's worth I liked the presentation.
In fact, I liked the movie, it's just that it is so simple there isn't much to talk about or get excited over beyond the few minutes you're in the theater watching. The plot is easy enough to relate to as we've all wanted to fight back at some point. And, Andrew, with his new powers and the relentless amount of bottled rage, he's finally able to muster up the courage to stand up for himself, but it comes at the cost of his rage taking over.
Which brings me to one major point, if there's any complaint in the actual story, it's the exhaustive the film goes to just to show how bad Andrew's life is. It gets so heavy-handed in some moments it runs the risk of turning our feelings for Andrew from pity to animosity, but I guess they figured they needed to fill the time with something as Chronicle only runs 83 minutes long.
The rest of the film, however, leaves little to complain about. The performances from the three leads are solid (Michael B. Jordan was the stand out for me with charisma to spare) and the effects for a low budget feature are quite impressive. Trank was working on a budget somewhere around $13 million and still managed to effectively destroy most of downtown Seattle and send three high schoolers flying through the air along with cars, helicopters, buses and whatever else got in the way. At some moments the wire work is a bit clumsy, but for the price you can't really beat it.
Chronicle is a small story with a heavy dose of action and I enjoyed it for that. It essentially plays like an episode of "Heroes" without all the unnecessary mumbo-jumbo to get in the way. We're not talking high concept here as we're only talking about a "what if?" scenario if you were to suddenly realize you could crush a car with your mind, but that's enough for an 83-minute movie to keep me entertained.
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Quite enjoyable, I like how they didn't make it any longer just for the sake of it, 84 minutes was fine. My only problem was I just didn't feel that much emotion for the end, but I think it was a well done movie and I also gave it a C+
I actually liked it quite a bit more – an interesting deconstruction of the superhero. I will say, though, that I thought the found footage thing was a bit of gimmick than you did, which wasn't helped by how often they called attention to it.
With more budget the showdown would have looked even more impresive maybe destroying seattle downtown.
I saw it at an advance screening Tuesday afternoon. It's terrible. The dialog is dreadfully written and somehow even worse-acted. The whole "found footage" style has gotten very old and it's as tired here as I've seen it anywhere else. I just hoped all the stupid characters would die and the movie would end.
F-
This film is quite good. It felt refreshing as it actually build to something very cool in its last act.
Its sort of like Unbreakable from the villians point of view.
With The Grey last week and now this 2012 is off to a solid start.
This film suffered from a severe lack of Channing Tatum.
Just got back from seeing it, I thought it was just okay. A lot of teenagers seem to think it's the "BEST MOVIE EVER!!!!!111" but eh. I just felt it lacked something and that the camera stuff got a bit ridiculous, especially the part where one character does something just to get a whole bunch of video devices just to give different angles to a scene (being vague for spoilers).