Chronicle (2012) - Josh Trank

Synopsis:

After finding an alien-like chrystal underground, three high school friends become endowed with special powers. These powers however garner great responsibility and they soon find themselves consumed and their dark sides unleashed.

After watching Chronicle I'm probably going to be attempting to move things with my mind for a good week or so. So if you see a crazy blonde kid in the street, his arm outstretched trying to move a car with willpower alone, feel free to come over and say “Hey man, really like your blog... good luck with the telekinesis thing”. I may or may not reply, however, and this should thoroughly reflect how much I enjoyed this film, and how much you should too. I remember watching Jumper and wanting to teleport everywhere, but this time round I had already loved the idea of being telekinetic and I feel that Chronicle showed what having this kind of power does to three different American high school stereotypes.

There's the outcast, Andrew, the popular kid, Steve Montgomery, and then there's the more neutral character in Matt. There is an issue with this however in that they tend to focus too heavily on the Andrew character. Although Dane DeHaan is certainly the most intriguing actor, simply through his movements and look alone, I didn't like how he was the most powerful of the three. It's nice to see corruption within the piece but it would have been better to see a more even battle in the closing stages of the film. Thankfully the other leads are charismatic enough, bringing the first half of the film such jubilance and fun, to stand above their slightly sloppy portrayals and I hope that this opens up a few doors for them.

The very concept of the piece is what makes Chronicle so great. That we get to see these guys doing the exact same stuff we would do with the realisation of these powers gets you amped up in an unparalleled way. It makes you want to jump into the film itself and join in with the fun of exploring these gifts. I suppose its the whole boy hood fantasy of being a superhero that unleashes your inner child and keeps you so captivated by what's happening on screen. It's even hard to feel bad for the victims of these super powers gone awry because, quite frankly, it's just so cool. With that said it would have been nice for the director and those behind the film to go a bit deeper, darker, as it stills feels slightly MTV shallow, probably due to the found footage cinematography style and the constant need to rely on the digital camera's to tell the story. We are always with the characters and so we feel slightly cut off from others, unable to truly sympathise.

But that's not to take away from this very refreshing hand held format. The film thankfully didn't open with a statement claiming to be “Reclaimed footage after a terrible accident”. It just jumped straight in, using any camera's in the character's vicinity to drive the story forward and I think this made a really nice change. A little hard to get used to but you can appreciate what they are trying to do here as it allows us to nearly forget about the characters and fall into a state of comfort as if we are watching a normal film. It may feel a little messy in places, particularly in the finale, but it was still held together well. I also feel the most outstanding moments of the film are interactions between Andrew and his camera as he wheels it around slowly, calculated through the air, just staring blankly as he descends into, seemingly, an overwhelming madness. Film making at its best.

Overview:

An interesting experimental piece which cleverly holds its experiment together to make a decent and coherent film. I couldn't help but feel I wanted to see a much deeper, traditional film, but this is still the best outing into the telekinesis genre (which is something I just made up) since Matilda.

Rating:

★★★