Monty Cristo here, writing by the burning midnight oil.
I saw CHRONICLE this past Wednesday, and have wrestled with my thoughts on how to recommend this film in a way that may not have already been done. Forgive me if you've read a similar opinion already. CHRONICLE is already in theaters, but I think that the film's weekday performance based on word-of-mouth will have a lot to do with how its success is measured, so here is my weekend-of-release review.
CHRONICLE is one of the most refreshing "super powers" movies I've seen in some time, especially relative to franchise pictures that have millions of licensed toys associated with them. I firmly believe it should not be casually labeled a "super hero" movie. Its roots are more firmly in the realm of speculative fiction in a more broad sense, though it owes a healthy amount to the world of comic books.
The story asks "What If...three high schoolers get the power of telekinesis?".
The three guys move things with their minds. To start with, it's solid objects like the camera that's recording them. Eventually they figure out how to make themselves fly by extension. The more they use the powers, the stronger they get.
Andrew comes from an absuive home life. Matt is his cousin who has suppressed his intellect and compassion for the sake of seeming more like a cool "bro" to others. Steve (FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS' Michael B Jordan) is the most popular guy in school, who it turns out is nice to everyone (unlike the archetype usually employed on the "popular guy").
I wish there were more Steve in the movie. I liked him and while I wouldn't say that he was underdeveloped, I wanted to know more about why he took such a deep interest in being there for Andrew. We were told at Wednesday's Q&A that there will be a Director's Cut for Blu-ray. Even if they have to do a last-minute reshoot or two, my opinion is that more is better than less.
The three guys become very close. To see them form a bond that is entirely unique to their predicament, something they couldn't ever have with anyone else, is rather remarkable. Inevitably, something bad happens. Then more bad things happen, and as fantastical as the story's conceit (and found footage style) is, the narrative never feels anything but captivating and real throughout.
Not being saddled with the baggage of expectations that comes with a franchise is a major advantage for the film. It can play with the imagery of comic book and speculative fiction at large while at once not being held to the standard of how one tells the origin of the Mind Powers Dude Squad (my self-generated name for the movie's protagonists).
Think of how THE INCREDIBLES played with various FANTASTIC FOUR and James Bond elements, free and clear of being canonically sound with either franchise. SKY HIGH pulled powers and archetypes from both major comic companies, layering them on top of an alternate-universe take on Xavier's School for the Gifted from X-MEN.
CHRONICLE plays with many dynamics from American comics, from Magneto/Xavier to Spider-Man/Uncle Ben to Superman/Luthor to Hulk/Abomination and countless others. It feels familiar, but not so much so that you don't think of the connections until afterward. There may be a number of links one could make that weren't necessarily intended by the writer (Max Landis, with the story generated by director Josh Trank), and instead are informed by one's personal reading.
There's certainly some manga and anime influence. AKIRA being the most notable culprit...and in a way that makes a live action AKIRA remake categorically irrelevant.
The thing that I have read a number of critics complaining about is the found footage narrative style, and it put me off at first too. Then I saw the movie.
Director Trank became rather well-known in 2007 for a found footage-style YouTube short called STABBING AT LEIA'S 22ND BIRTHDAY:
It was inspired, to hear Trank tell it, by the trend of many YouTube videos of the day being from drunken frat party fights. He took a geeky twist on the idea and spun it into viral gold.
Whereas I hope that Trank makes films without the use of the "found footage" look, I think it works here; moreover, I think it's essential to why a big part of the movie works at all. What the aesthetic did for me was place this generationally as being a movie fixed on the navel-gazing, self-important youth culture that is as prevalent today as grunge and flannel were in the mid-90's.
Everyone is a star and a super hero (or villain) in the broadcast network of their own mind these days. It's what YouTube has done to us all.
It's still a weird thing for a kid to carry around a camera at school, but the kid (Andrew in this case) is considered weird more because he's a weird, maladjusted, awkward kid. There's a pretty, popular girl carrying a camera around everywhere too, and she doesn't get much crap from anyone about it.
One could say that the very fact the aesthetic distracts people is conclusive evidence that it's a problem, but consider what the average attention span is like for modern, "connected" human beings.Andrew and his friends recording themselves is just something kids do, whether with their phones or proper cameras.
For Andrew personally, his camera is his echo chamber, his self-audience. Reducing the found footage style here to an aesthetic choice or gimmick is to dismiss an integral part of Andrew's character development. To delete it would be to recompose an entirely different movie.
CHRONICLE's strengths are in its adherence to guiding you into unknown territory while teasing elements of the familiar. See it in a theater and take a group of friends.
I'll leave you with a review I received from reader "Jewbacca":
Hey folks, just got back from the AICN screening of “Chronicle”, the first superhero film of 2012 to hit the big screen. This film also marks the world’s first (I believe) found footage superhero film ever. I think I need to kick this review off by explaining that I’ve developed a pretty high level of ennui for both the “superhero origin” and “found footage” genres. My expectations for this film were not high, at all. I expected an amateurish retelling of Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero’s Journey” presented via nausea inducing shakey-cam. I was wrong, this film absolutely took my by surprise, and while It didn’t exactly renew my excitement for either genre, I think that it absolutely did something new and unexpected with both of them.
First, let’s discuss the story. Andrew (Dane DeHann) is a high school student with pretty much the worst life that middle-class suburbia has to offer. His mother is dying of a horrible debilitating disease, his out of work father drinks at 7 am and routinely beats him, he has no friends in school and is used as a punching bag by his fellow students as well as a group of neighborhood thugs. Andrew has, as a way of setting up a barrier between him and the world, decided that he is going to videotape everything. The first 15 minutes or so of the film are just Andrew going about his miserable, lonely routine, chronicling every moment on his camera. His cousin Alex (Matt Garetty) convinces him to come with him to a rave, so Andrew reluctantly comes along and it is there that the story kicks into gear. Matt, along with the most popular guy in school, the incredibly charismatic Steve (Michael B. Jordan) have found something outside the party, an unlikely cave in the woods, that the three of them decide to investigate. There is something in this cave, it looks like a huge crystal, perhaps it’s a giant chunk of the Fortress of Solitude, we don’t know, it really doesn’t matter, it’s making a lot of noise and starts to change colors, the earth starts to shake and then we cut to black. The next time the camera turns on it is clear that a few days have passed and that something has changed in these three young men. They’ve developed some telekinetic talents and begin examining the extent of their newfound abilities. I’m not saying another word about what happens next in the story, the trailers give too much away already and, as is the case with most films, I recommend going in as ignorant to the plot as you possibly can.
The fact that the above description may seem too familiar to you is pretty irrelevant, all superhero origins are essentially the same, an ordinary person encounters something extraordinary and is given more power than they know what to do with. It’s what happens when these characters are given this power that makes the film so interesting, and even more than that it is the relationship that develops between these three young men.
What about the gimmick? Does the done-to-death found footage technique work here? Does it bring anything interesting to the story? Yes, it does. There’s no shakey cam here. Director Josh Trank’s father is a renowned Holocaust documentarian, and it is with a documentarian’s eye that this story is filmed. Within the film Andrew has set out to chronicle the story of his life, and Trask finds very creative ways to keep the camera rolling without ever having a character run down the street with a poorly angled camera jostling the audience to the point of near-vomit.
“Chronicle” is an extremely engaging, fun yet intense film throughout. It’s an outstanding directorial debut from Josh Trank, it’s amazing to me that this first time filmmaker is able to shoot an action scene with the pizzazz of Michael Bay, while still keeping the action clearly focused and coherent. If this film does well there’s rumblings that Fox will be handing Trank the reigns for the “Fantastic Four” reboot, personally that’s a film I’d be very interested in seeing, if he had the ability to accomplish this film with 15 million dollars, one can only imagine what he’s capable of achieving with ten times that amount.
