Title: Chronicle
Year: 2012
Genre: Drama, C. Ficción, Thriller
Director: Josh Trank
Writer: Max Landis (screenplay), Max Landis and Josh Trank (story)
Runtime: 84min
Cast: Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, Michael B. Jordan, Michael Kelly,
Ashley Hinshaw
Produc.: Davis Entertainment, Adam Schroeder Productions, Film Afrika
Worldwide
Budget: $12 million approx.
In Chronicle, three friends are exposed to a strange substance found in
a forest. From that moment they begin to experience the power of
telekinesis.
Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHann) and Matt
Garetty (Alex Russell) are cousins. However, the relationship of intimate
friendship that they held in their childhood, no longer exists. Meanwhile,
Andrew is a young shy man, unpopular, and who manages to feel comfortable at a
party by carring a video camera, which also brings him problems. Andrew ends up
leaving the party, beaten, and sitting in the open air.
Soon, another boy, his name Steve
Montgomery (Michael B. Jordan), goes to Andrew for a favor. He and Matt have
found something and want Andrew to register it. Andrew follows Steve to the scene
of the events, which could be described as a curious hole in the ground. Within
it, they find something inexplicable, a substance never seen before, that makes
noises and emits very sharp colors, and which endows them with a power that is
perhaps too large for them to control. Later, the two cousins enxperience
together, shortening their distance again.
Chronicle is one of the first novelties of
2012, in
the line of The Blair Witch Project (1999), Paranormal Activity (2007),
Trollhunter (2010) or Grave Encounters (2011), in a time when the sugenre of
movies on the type of "fake documentary" or "found footage" has
become the new fashion.
Here we have, obviously, the typical guy
who carries his camera everywhere and no matter what happens, which is an
excuse for us to see, almost at first hand, all that happens. The largest
differences compared to similar products is that, while in Grave Encounters or
The Blair Witch Project we were expectant to the appearance of ghosts, monsters
or demons, the focus here are the main protagonists, of whom we are always
expecting to see move or break something, or do something that surprises us.
Each scene is another occasion for discovering how far they can go, from having
fun doing harmless pranks, up to comiting almost fatal mistakes. The latter,
which leads Matt to see a need to establish certain rules.
It is possible that some see a resemblance
to Brian de Palma´s Carrie (1976). On this, I can only say that Chronicle is far
from being a copy of the classic of the 70s, as evidenced by its starting
point, which is another completely different, or for the approach given to the
characters, along with the sort of staging.
From time to time, the different paranormal
circumstances are set aside for addressing Matt´s complicated family situation.
The boy lives under the same roof with his ailing mother, who is always in bed,
and with his disabled father, a former firefighter, and a man terrified by his
wife´s illness and who only knows how to express himself through
reprimand.
The film leads us through this world full of possibilities, which
involves being able to manipulate objects, almost regardless of the number or
sizes and without having to lift a finger. From playing with the pieces of a
Lego, to tow a car or even fly like Peter Pan, through the clouds. However,
something that these guys should have never forgotten is of the enormous
responsibility that means having something so huge. Because Matt is an
intelligent and lucid guy, the same can be said about Steve, but not, about
Andrew.
Andrew is not a bad boy and has no bad feelings, but not even the
greates of the powers has been able to evade him from the weight of a dying
mother, or of a father who can only yell or question him what he does and who
he hangs out with.
Fortunately, Chronicle have been able to
offer us a concept that went beyond the flying and moving stuff. It deals with
the problematic of a boy who, unable to stop to reason, is forced to go to the
extreme, to distrust of all, seeing them as enemies and feeling that they
should be punished. Andrew ends up becoming a sort of male version of Carrie,
only that his possibilities of action and destruction are much larger and more
catastrophic.
With the wanderings of these guys is
revealed to us how each one enjoys his superhuman ability, to then see, in the
ending, the actual deployment of visual effects. That's where the action fills
the screen with extras, vehicles and glassess flying everywhere, because of a
disturbed kid. All we see constitutes the sum of a work of pyrotechnics,
extensive use of chrome (green screen) and large variety of digital additions.
In this very same ending is where the film loses part of its dramatic
dimension, so that everything becomes something purely entertaining, similar to
the battle between superheroes and vllains. Out of that, this new successor to
The Blair Witch Project is certainly worth it, and is not, just another one of
the pile.
My rating: 7/10
My rating: 7/10
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