With great power, we are so often told, comes great responsibility. If an ordinary person finds himself imbued with godly powers, he should don a tight-fitting, very metrosexual costume and fight evil wherever he finds it.
Bollocks; Give any Tom, Dick or Harry a superpower, and the first thing he’ll do is film himself arsing around and post the footage on YouTube. This, in a nutshell, is Chronicle, the debut film from director Josh Trank.
Teenagers Andrew (Dane DeHaan), Matt (Alex Russel) and Steve (Michael B. Jordan) discover a hole in the ground containing… something that’s never really explained. It looks like a giant mood crystal. In any case, the lads awake the next morning discovering they can move objects – and even fly – with their minds. All starts well, as cars slide around parking lots and leaf-blowers lift the cheerleaders’ skirts. But eventually Andrew starts pulling an Anakin Skywalker, using his powers for more destructive ends…
Chronicle is a found-footage movie, à la Blair Witch or Cloverfield, but before that puts you off, it’s worth knowing that this is actually a smart move. It makes a great point about our modern society; if we see something interesting, our first impulse is to film it and put it on the Internet. Andrew’s telekinesis cleverly solves the problem most found-footage films suffer from –that you can’t see the guy holding the camera – whilst CCTV footage and iPhones are cunningly used towards the end of the film to make sure we always know what’s going on.
The script is penned by Max Landis, son of American Werewolf director John, and it’s clear that the latter’s talent has been passed on. We’re never told why the characters get their abilities, but frankly we don’t care – as soon as it happens, we hit the ground running as Matt, Andrew and Steve go from strength to strength. The plot moves quickly, but never feels hurried, and the ending can rival most Hollywood blockbusters for awesomeness. There are some issues; the last two minutes devolve into a load of cheesy soliloquizing, and there’s a subplot involving a love interest of Matt’s that could have been removed entirely. Yes, she’s pretty, and she has a camera, but she really wasn’t necessary.
The three male leads, on the other hand, are. Fortunately, they’re some of the most believable teenage characters there have been for a good while. They don’t fit any stereotypes, and so will feel relatable to basically anyone the same age as them. Special mention should go to DeHaan’s performance as troubled Andrew; his downward spiral is compelling and (at times) downright unnerving – you actually feel sorry for him even as he crushes a car into a cube with a creepy, serial-killer look on his face.
Thanks to a well-written script, a talented trio of protagonists and some captivating special effects, Chronicle manages to breathe new life into found-footage movies and superhero films; two genres which, lately, have been starting to feel a little bit stale.
8/10