Chronicle is yet another movie I've
never heard of until I saw a trailer for it a few weeks ago. It
looked interesting enough as I'm a sucker for a “person gets super
powers and starts going crazy” stories, so I bought it as the
blu-ray is quite cheap. However, it turns out there's a Director's
Cut version which is not the one I purchased, so this review is just
for the theatrical edition.
This is the first “found footage”
movie on this site, a genre which I am sick and tired of not because
it's overdone, but because they almost never make sense from a
realistic standpoint. No one would be able to capture most of the
moments you see in the angles they get, and it constantly takes me
out of the film. Not to mention issues like sound quality, battery
life, memory limitations... yes, I overthink everything.
I suppose one could also point how most
are woefully low budget and contain terrible writing, acting,
directing, editing, and then there's the endings... oh Good God, the
endings. You know it says a lot about the state of today's
movies when found footage film the Blair Witch Project is
now considered the Citizen Kane of the genre. But why am I ranting about horror found
footage movies? We have a sci-fi one to watch! Let's see how this
story fares, with A Ghoul Versus Chronicle.
We open the film with one of our leads,
Seattle high school student Andrew, beginning his day. His life
sucks. His dad is an abusive drunk, his mom is dying of cancer, he's
constantly bullied at school, and he really doesn't have friends
besides his cousin Matt. He has just bought a camera to record his
life, specifically the abuse he receives at the hands of his dad...
although he never goes to the authorities with it.
Matt invites him to a party, which
doesn't go well as he gets in a confrontation with a guy at the party
for filming the guy's girlfriend. Matt goes outside to cry, where
he's found by Steve. Steve is the popular kid at school, doing double
duty as star football player and class president. But in an unusual
twist he's not a jerk, and wants Andrew to come with him as he and
Matt have found something interesting out in the woods. It's a... hole with a very loud booming
noise is coming out of it? They left a bumpin' party for THAT?
Steve and Matt go down to investigate, Andrew reluctantly coming
along. They find a very strange looking crystalline object in the
cavern, which turns red when they approach it. Andrew's camera starts
shorting out as the kids all develop nosebleeds. The crystal starts
surging and the footage blacks out.
A few weeks later, Andrew films them
with a new camera- wait, so he lost his last camera underground?
Then how the hell did we see that footage from earlier then if the
camera was destroyed? This is ALWAYS the problem with found
footage movies, they make no sense when you stop to think about how
the footage got assembled into one big movie or WHY it was done. The young men painfully throw
baseballs at each other, Andrew able to stop his in midair as we
learn they have now developed telekinetic powers from their exposure
to the crystal. We see them try to return to the cave but the hole
has been caved in and police have sealed off the area, which isn't
suspicious at all. The boys must agree with me, as they never follow
up on this.
Over time, their powers grow and they
gain greater control over them. This culminates in an incident where
they're driving down the highway with an asshole truck behind them
honking at them to speed up. Andrew uses his powers to knock the
truck off the road and into a lake in what is probably the greatest
scene in movie history... if
you're a road rage-o-holic like me. Matt and Steve save
the truck driver, very upset at Andrew who doesn't seem that
concerned at all. I know I'm supposed to take their side on it
because what Andrew did was wrong, but I bet that guy obeys speed
limits from now on!
Matt decides they need to establish some rules about this whole power thing. They are:
1. No using it on living things.
2. No using it when angry
3. No using it when anyone else is around.
And since this is a movie with rules, everyone follows them to the letter and they live happily ever after.
Cue the credits.
Wait, this is still going?
Later on, Steve has now learned how to
fly and teaches the others how to do so. We get some amazing flight
sequences including an SWEET one where they play football in the
clouds. Horror Found Footage Filmmakers are hopefully taking notes as
to how having a bit of a budget can actually do some amazing things
for your movie.
The fun is brought to a screeching halt
as a jetliner flies by and hits Steve and sends him crashing to the
ground, but Andrew is able to save him before he hits. Later, as they
stay the night at Steve's, Andrew declares that was the greatest day
of his life. They all agree. Steve and Andrew enter the school magic
show, Andrew bringing down the house thanks to his powers. This makes
Andrew the man of the hour at a house party that night, which either
means this is the world's most boring high school or Hollywood has
been lying to us about the popularity levels of magicians amongst
teenager. Andrew catches the attention of a pink-haired girl named
Monica, who, um, looks about as much as a high school student as the
old lady in Not Another Teen Movie.
They go upstairs to have sex after drinking a lot, but Andrew ends up vomiting on her before they can do so. This begins a very bad chain of events for Andrew, which doesn't make a lot of sense because he never really got that cocky with his powers to deserve comeuppance. Everyone at school makes fun of him and his dad steps up his abuse regiment as his mother's health gets worse. We catch up with Andrew hiding up in the clouds during a lightning storm, where he works on the fine art of dark brooding. Steve is somehow able to find him, as it's inferred the teens share a psychic bond of some sort. Steve just wants to help but Andrew screams at him to leave him alone. The camera footage here gets incomprehensible as I believe Andrew lashes out and causes lightning to strike and kill Steve, but I really can't be sure. Long story short, the Black Guy Dies First.
At Steve's funeral, Matt tells Andrew
that he knows he had something to do with Steve's death which is
confirmed later when we see Andrew alone at Steve's gravestone
tearfully apologizing. Back at school, Andrew is still being
mocked by everyone for the vomit incident. He lashes out, pulling the
teeth out of one of the bullies making fun of him. We join him in the
bathroom analyzing his technique of yanking the teeth out. Yeah, I
think it's safe to say he's crossed that pesky sanity line at this
point. Just to hammer that home we get a scene of him talking to his
camera about how he's an “apex predator” and the next step of
evolution. Well, this is about to get interesting.
In Andrew's room, Matt confronts him
over the improvisational dentistry he performed earlier that day.
Matt ends up trying to punch him, but Andrew defends himself with his
powers. But just to show that Andrew still has a few strings of his
humanity left, we find him trying to get money to buy his mother's
medicine as she's the only person in the world he cares about. He
goes about this in probably not the most efficient way by deciding to
go mugging people.
He dons an impromptu super villain
costume made out of his dad's old firefighting gear (awesomely set to
David Bowie's “Ziggy Stardust”) and shakes down some thugs
in his neighbourhood, but they don't have enough money. He next
targets a convenience store, but it goes horribly awry as he ends up
accidentally blowing up a propane tank and setting himself on fire.
He's partially saved by the firefighter gear but still ends up in the
hospital pretty badly burnt. Via hospital security footage, we see
Andrew's dad arrive at the hospital where Andrew is under police
custody. He appears to be unconscious, as his dad reveals his mother
died while he was out looking for him. He starts screaming at Andrew,
who wakes up and makes the wall explode.
At a birthday party for his little
brother, Matt's psychic link to Andrew is activated as his nose
starts bleeding. On the TV they see a “bomb” has gone off at the
hospital, Matt knowing this is Andrew. He and his girlfriend Casey
drive off to find Andrew. Back at the hospital Andrew flies out of
the smoking crater that was his room, holding his dad. He drops him,
Matt flying up to save him. Matt and Casey get back in their car, but
Andrew levitates it into the air.
We're treated to an amazing shot of the
Seattle Space Needle as Andrew lands the car atop it. He yanks Matt
out of the car and lets it go, sending Casey to her death. Matt is
able to rescue her and set her safely on the ground, flying off to
confront Andrew. They wage an epic battle that is cut
through numerous views of police helicopter footage and security
camera footage, which looks INCREDIBLE. Even more importantly it
looks real, not just a CGI video game like virtually every superhero
movie Hollywood churns out these days.
In the end, Andrew has Matt knocked
down while he starts having a massive power surge that is slowly
destroying all the buildings around them. Matt is forced to levitate
a spear from a statue from a nearby statue and use it to kill Andrew
to finally stop him. This is probably the only part of the
movie that really took me out of it, as the cameras are right in
front of Andrew and Matt with no explanation whatsoever who could
have been filming it. Minor nitpick, I know. Matt flies away before
the cops can arrest him.
Our film ends in Tibet, where earlier
in the film Andrew indicated he wanted to go. Matt sets up a camera,
using it to apologize to Andrew. He knows he wasn't a bad person.
Andrew vows to use his powers to help people from now on, as well as
getting answers on what happened to them. He leaves the camera set up
and flies away.
Cue the credits.
Wow, this was a NICE surprise. This was
a very enjoyable movie, and SO well done. It's a fairly original take
on the superhero origin story where we stay very grounded in reality
instead of the usual “let's go fight crime!”. This is the new gold standard for Found
Footage films are far as I'm concerned, as it defied every bad thing
they usually do. It had a good story, the acting was average (but not
terrible), and the directing and editing were SUPERB. The ending was
even satisfying, going as far to set up a sequel in a way that didn't
feel forced. I can easily recommend this film to anyone, no matter
your tastes.
One last thing, the creators of this
film, John Trank and Max Landis, were working on a sequel but sadly
were fired off the project altogether. Which is a shame, I really
would have liked to see how they followed this one up as I was really
interested in what the crystalline object was and what the
authorities knew about it.
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