Movie Review: Chronicle (2012)
Posted By Ryan Morrissey-Smith on May 27, 2013
When a film involves events that would seem more at home in a comic book, the style of the film has a big bearing on how it plays out. Going with the ‘found footage’ style brings an inherent danger with it, will it be too much of a distraction? Will it be messy and hard to know whats going on? Or will it be a superbly crafted, intelligent and excellent film – lucky for us, it is the latter.
Chronicle is the story of Andrew an outcast but creative teen. He is introverted and socially awkward. Whilst at a rave party, Andrew (Dean DeHaan), his cousin Matt (Alex Russell) and new friend Steve (Michael B. Jordan), make a discovery that leads them all to acquire powerful telekinetic abilities. So a bare boned premise, but the way this is handled is nothing short of amazing. Despite this being a fantastical story, it is grounded in a realism that makes this film a well written teen drama as opposed to an out and out sci-fi flick.
The three leads (DeHaan, Russell and Jordan) are uniformly outstanding. Their performances are as natural as you can hope for, despite their new-found abilities, they are still just teens. After the setup of the film, giving each of the main players a chance to show their personality and after the deliberately sparse details on how they discovered their abilities, the film really kicks into gear. The teens do as teens do and start to experiment. First off - it is building Lego by picking up the pieces with your mind, stopping balls in mid-air, they even indulge in a little a bit of Zapped style skirt lifting. Then they start to up the ante and eventually figure out their powers can keep growing the more they experiment. However, as the oft quoted Spiderman line about power and responsibility comes into play, a prank goes wrong and a person is injured. From there, the story starts getting darker as the reclusive Andrew gets popular (through an interesting use of his new powers) then suffers a teenage humiliation which sends him spiraling out of control.
Trank pushes the found footage angle but then uses the story (and the boys abilities to control objects) to allow some really great tracking shots and when things start really ramping up, he cleverly uses CCTV, News footage and in-car police camera to capture the action, it works perfectly. Despite the inclusion of a video blogging student, none of it really feels all that forced. The special effects are quite spectacular too, especially when the boys learn to fly and in the climax of the film.
Writer Max Landis’ story is smart, thrilling and when needed emotional. The writing hits the right notes at just the right time, maintaining the balance between the drama, the action and progressing the story. Landis also has a few things to say about the class system, albeit in a teenage context, but the messages are there none the less.
At the heart of Chronicle, it is a story about self discovery and for better or worse includes a morality tale, whether it by design or just because that was how the story arc formed. For a film about telekinetic teens that can fly and produce force fields, it sure does capture that awful feeling of being a teenager and not being in control of your emotions.
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