Chronicle - A Review

2 Stars - Decent Idea, terrible execution.

Chronicle is a film that raises the questions of does ultimate power corrupt? How much does it take to push a person to the edge? Just who was filming that final fight scene anyway?...

Josh Trank's film is a 'found-footage' piece. This is framed through the idea of the main character Andrew (Dane DeHaan) deciding he is going to film everything in his life. His reasons for doing this seem unclear, and the how the found-footage would be found is often a mystery.

Andrew, his cousin Matt (Alex Russell) and a jock they meet at a party Steve (Michael B. Jordan) all gain mysterious psychic powers after contact with an unspecified strange object. Their powers are seemingly limitless, though larger objects are more difficult to move until they work on it more. The three explore their powers and have fun with it, then Andrew begins to start hurting people and becomes something of a monster.

As a premise for a film there is a lot of potential in this idea, it could lead to cool visuals, interesting moral dilemas and serious character development. However due to the three main characters all being unlikeable dicks, all we as an audience get is annoyed that they don't do anything of worth with their powers.

Andrew is presented to us as tormented, by an abusive, alchoholic father (Michael Kelly) who was in fact the only character I got any kind of attachment to, since he had a scene of genuine decent emotion and you could see him strugling. Andrew's mother is dying of a non-specific disease, and it's here that I started to feel they were laying it on a bit thick with his 'trauma'. This kind of teen-angst is hard to get right in films and more often is just annoying, this is one of those cases.

So when he finally snaps and starts hurting people, we don't feel sorry for him and can't see his choices as anything but evil, not misunderstood.

The 'found-footage' element of this film is another black mark on it, I am not a fan of this sub-genre for a start. The film is always from the point of view of someone's camera, but I really can't see why. It added nothing and often led to the big question of just who on earth was filming that bit? A particula bad example, we see from inside a police car as it is flipped over by Andrew, but why would the police be filming out of their front window? Also, why does everyone's camera have exactly the same high def picture quality?

To sum up, Chronicle takes a good premise for a film and fails to deliver it to its full potential. I'd give it a miss if I were you.