Chronicle (***)
Directed by: Josh Trank
Starring: Dane DeHaan, Michael B. Jordan, Alex Russell, Michael Kelly,
Ashley Hinshaw
Seen: March 5th 2012
*** Out of ****
Chronicle is a found footage movie: a video camera was recovered and the
footage on it is now the movie; like Cloverfield or The Blair Witch Project.
The problem I have with this particular movie is not that the footage is shaky
to the degree of nausea a la Cloverfield, but that all the found footage in
this movie obviously went through serious editing before being presented as ‘found
footage’. Footage from multiple cameras is used during the movie, as a camera
is lost (with no plausible way of recovering its footage), and snippets are
shown from a camera on which another character in the movie films life for her
blog. Also, it seems that on quite a few occasions it simply doesn’t make sense
that the camera would even be filming right then. All the editing does bring
the running time of the movie down to a tight 83 minutes though, so I’m on board
for this one.
Andrew Detmer (DeHaan) is a bit of a social outcast. His father
Richard (Kelly) beats him at home and consequently Andrew decides to get a
camera to threaten his father with filming his violent outbursts, which leads
into Andrew filming his life – even being bullied at school. Andrew drives to
school with his cousin Matt (Russell), who occasionally displays a strange
fountain of literary knowledge and who is ‘interested’ in Casey (Hinshaw), the
blogger with the other camera that also supplies short scraps of footage. At a school
party, Matt and his friend Steve (Jordan) discover a hole in the ground
emitting strange noises, and they venture into it, a protesting Andrew
following with his camera. They discover a large crystalline object emitting
light and messing with micro-gravity; their noses start bleeding; they wake up
later – and immediately start exploring the telekinetic powers bestowed on them
by the alien object. Like typical teenagers they play around with it, having
fun and laughing at everything. But, also like teenagers, this time the
irresponsible kind, they start testing the limits of their power and realise
they’re growing stronger. Andrew discovers and nurtures a mean streak that’s
always been in him but that he was too weak to express, and Steve and Matt try,
with less and less success, to keep Andrew in check.
Andrew’s situation at home does not bode well as his father puts
enormous pressure on him while his mother is on her deathbed, and when their
money runs out, Andrew turns to the dark side of his powers to try and save his
mother. Events escalate to a surprisingly large and somewhat spectacular
crescendo as Andrew grows exceptionally powerful and villainous, setting the
scene for quite an impressive showdown to close out the movie.
Chronicle is entertaining and impressive with a small few distractions
that keep the viewer from complete abandonment to the story. The visuals are
good and in context of the story everything is believable. If science fiction
with from a slightly different angle sounds like your thing, then Chronicle is
just the movie for you.
Comments