CHRONICLE – The Review

For many, the “superhero” genre is as worn out as an old sock, with so many comic book movies proving they are bigger on their budgets than their concepts. I am, of course speaking of the average movie-goer, not the clutch of comic book fans that frequent the film adaptations, for better or worse. On the other hand, there’s the rare film that takes the superhero genre and turns it upside-down, delivering a fresh new concept or unique spin on the oft over-blown orgies of CGI and miscast megastars we are accustomed to seeing.

On one hand, you have filmmakers like James Gunn who take the superhero genre into an extremist, even exploitative (these are compliments, folks) realm of parody and violence like with SUPER, and smaller comic books of higher quality adapted into quality films such as KICK-ASS. On the other hand, you have filmmakers who take the superhero genre and break it down into its essential parts, with only the core premise remaining, and build something new, something conceptual and less grandiose. One of the best examples is M. Night Shyamalan’s UNBREAKABLE, which gets at the core of what makes a superhero, and their super villains tick on a human level.

CHRONICLE is the newest example of such a film, written by Max Landis (the son of director John Landis) and is the feature film debut of director Josh Trank, who worked as an editor on BIG FAN, starring Patton Oswalt. The story follows three teenagers — Steve (Michael B. Jordan), Matt (Alex Russell), and Andrew (Dane DeHaan) — as they learn to adapt to life with newly acquired abilities as a result of a mysterious discovery during a late night barn rave.

The film presents itself as a found footage project, with the awkwardly anti-social Andrew choosing to record everything on a recently purchased camcorder. This approach works well enough for about the first half of the film, even though most of it is clearly of a higher production quality than would be expected from amateur found footage. This is fine, alleviating concerns that arose from THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and CLOVERFIELD regarding countless reports of motion sickness.

The problem, and really the only criticism I have of CHRONICLE, is that the film doesn’t fully commit to the found footage concept. The theme is inconsistent, primarily in the third act. In hindsight, this is understandable, as the third act contains most of the large scale action and special effects, which would have been more difficult to capture as found footage. There are attempts to convey and remind the audience of this notion, but there are also ways that this could have been done better, maintaining the perspective throughout the film.

I am purposefully being vague, as not to ruin anything about the ending of CHRONICLE. If you read between the lines, you’ll no doubt figure it out, but to explain how this could have been done better would not do the viewer justice prior to seeing it themselves.

As the three teenagers secretly learn and develop their abilities together, the group dynamics between them evolves and changes, which is where CHRONICLE shines. The characters are well developed, especially Andrew, who is clearly modeled along the lines of the DONNIE DARKO personality type. The film is told from Andrew’s point of view, not just because he is usually the one recording the found footage, but also because this is primarily his story. This in turn also presents another twist in the film’s approach, as Andrew becomes what you might call the film’s antagonist. Again, read into that what you will, but this is as far as I go with explaining Andrew’s involvement.

The special effects in CHRONICLE are achieved successfully, presenting the events on screen in a believable but frugal fashion, never overdoing the scale or flashiness of the effects. One of the most enjoyable scenes involved Steve helping Andrew make an impression during the school talent show, a scene where Andrew’s abilities are put to an impressively ingenious and playful use. The tone of CHRONICLE is very much in the high school “class struggle” vein, with elements of BREAKFAST CLUB and CARRIE mixed in with the previously mentioned DONNIE DARKO, and of course wrapped up in what is essentially a superhero origin story without all the pretentious back story and excess explanations of why and how. Instead, CHRONICLE focuses on how this development affects the three teenagers in their daily lives, and in whom they become.

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars