With rumors of a sequel in the works, I review the very best and very worst of the 2012 film, Chronicle. Spoilers Below!
We all wish we had super powers. But as the ‘Spidey’ films have told us time and time again, With great power, comes great responsibility.” However, the lead character for this film has something else in mind.
Three high school boys find a mysterious object that gives them super abilities. They have fun and things go bad when one guy — Andrew Detmer — gets a big head, then has a breakdown. As comic legend Stan Lee would say, ‘Nuff said. The film did not go into detail as to where the abilities truly came from. Who cares? This film was about adventure!
Chronicle excelled in creating the amazement of having super powers. We’ve seen plenty of comic book flicks in the past ten years, and with the excess of their stories the ‘wow-factor’ of having powers has diminished. These three boys learned and developed their powers by performing to the camera, a believable action for high school students. In that aspect, the ever constant camera-gimmick worked.
One may expect poor acting or writing in a “found footage” film like this, but surprisingly neither seemed to hinder the story, although pacing occasionally slowed. The three high school boys were enjoyable to watch [particularly Matt, played by Alex Russell] but all the other characters were thin and shallow [remember the blonde girlfriend? What was her role again?]. But, one of the weakest parts of the film is the ‘recording the moments’ camera-gimmick.
Chronicle follows the footsteps of the “found footage” movies before it: Paranormal Activity 1, 2, 3 and Cloverfield. This “creative” style has lost some appeal. Of course the main character –Andrew–’s addiction to filming himself was important. All he cared about was self-gratification. That said, the filmmaker could still display Andrew’s camera addiction characteristic [and the boys performing to the camera] while still employing mostly third-person camerawork.
How much more powerful would the climatic scene have been had Chronicle been filmed to display its full glory? Would it have been more expensive? Probably. The director should have remembered, despite the story, this is STILL a feature film. Many amazing shots were definitely sacrificed [and unnecessary details added] to keep the gimmick going.
With rumors of a sequel to the 2012 film, Chronicle has the potential to become a franchise. Perhaps the writers will choose to continue the story with actor Alex Russell, whose character remarkably survived this film [don’t all “found footage characters usually die?]. We can hope to see him again.
Chronicle was enjoyable and held mostly believable characters. The last scene shows the surviving teen Matt leaving the camera behind. Hopefully, the director follows suit and drops the camera gimmick next round.
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