If you were in high school, constantly being picked on while enduring a tumultuous home life and you suddenly had super powers, what would you do? This is a question "Chronicle," the latest "shaky-cam" film, sets out to answer.
"Chronicle" tells the story of three high school seniors who stumble upon, well, something that gives them extraordinary telekinetic abilities. Andrew (Dane DeHaan) is our protagonist, as he goes to the trouble of filming most of the action we see. Andrew is an introvert, not really connecting with anyone and trying to cope with his dying mother and drunk, abusive father. Matt (Alex Russell), who is Andrew's cousin and Steve (Michael B. Jordan), the most popular kid in school, round out our cast.
I believe "Chronicle" is significant because it represents the collision between two of the most popular genres of the last decade: the first person film and the superhero film.
To be perfectly honest, I've become a very big fan of these first-person style films. I think they've revolutionized the horror genre and given films in general an interesting kind of subjectivity that hadn't been explored at length before.
In this particular instance it takes a completely different stance than what is normal for superhero films. Rather than "Chronicle" being another wide mash-up of special effects and tiresome origin story for both a hero and villain, it is a discovery - the style of the film disorients the audience and mirrors the state of mind the characters are put in.
All of the actors give relatively solid performances. They didn't have much work to do, given how ingrained high school character templates are in Hollywood, but they do generally good work.
One shortcoming of "Chronicle" is the overall lack of interesting characters; most seem to be stock characters used to try and drive the plot forward or justify Andrew's increasingly aggressive behavior. Not many players in this story are very ambiguous. We like them exactly as much - or as little - as the filmmakers wants us to like them.
Andrew is the one exception to this, because he is a deeper and more conflicted character than anyone else in the story. His motivations are a little too clearly drawn at times, but for the most part he is a genuine and very tragic character.
It is also interesting to note that Andrew's story (spoiler) is essentially one of a super-villain. His motivations and eventual corruption all are reminiscent of any bad guy in a comic book movie, which makes the story more interesting. It's not often that we get a direct view of what a villain would think as they're growing up, so this is at least a dynamic plot element.
I think "Chronicle" suffers at times with its decidedly stagnant character development - outside of Andrew, of course. None of the other two main characters are all that interesting, though we are asked to invest in them. This is an obvious limitation, but "Chronicle" still had ways to work around this. In fact, many techniques of working around this were already evident in the plot.
I also think the movie makes some very interesting use of the "shaky cam" throughout its run time. Several times, for instance, we will suddenly shift from Andrew's camera to someone else's in order to gain a broader perspective. I think this is an interesting way to broaden the range of the story a bit and generally works well to give us some insight into other characters.
Overall, I think "Chronicle" is a pleasant surprise. It takes the genre to new heights and explores new techniques to tell its story. It is not an incredible film, but is still an interesting one. Andrew is a unique and interesting character; I just wish I could say the same for the rest of the players in this movie. It is worth seeing, but it is also worth waiting to rent it.
"Chronicle" receives a 7.5/10
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