100 movies: Chronicle

comments 9
100 movies of 2012

ChronicleChronicle (23/02/12)

Three high school friends gain superpowers after making an incredible discovery. Soon, though, they find their lives spinning out of control and their bond tested as they embrace their darker sides.

I think this film perfectly illustrates what teenage boys would do if they suddenly found themselves some super powers. Leaf blower up girls skirts. Check. Playing chicken with a baseball. Check. It’s very real in that sense. There’s no spandex. No super heroics. Just teenagers, being teenagers. That’s where this film’s at its best.

While I’ve been suffering a little bit from found footage fatigue, it worked here. I liked the small differences in different cameras. Though, I think they might have taken some liberties in the final BIG act.

The three guys, Alex, Andrew and Steve, were great. Though, at times I found it really hard to sympathise with Andrew. As Alex said, he can be so unnecessarily hostile, that no matter how bad his family life is, a part of me just didn’t care. Though at times I over-related to him and realised that was a truly terrifying thought.

The whole notion that humans are a being of will was nicely done here. It’s all about choice and choosing what to believe and what actions you want to carry out.

Personally, I enjoyed the film. Didn’t drag. And while the big showdown at the end was a little bit out of the feeling of the film, I didn’t mind it.
Rating: 4/5

Read on to see all the films watched this year…

10 Films so far this year

  1. The Tourist 1/5 (02/01/12)
  2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 5/5 (03/01/12)
  3. World’s Greatest Dad 2/5 (14/01/12)
  4. Haywire 3/5 (19/01/12)
  5. Dead Snow 3/5 (20/01/12)
  6. The Artist 5/5 (21/01/12)
  7. Priest 2/5 (05/02/12)
  8. The Muppets 5/5 (15/02/12)
  9. Faster 4/5 (19/02/12)
  10. Chronicle 4/5 (22/02/12)

9 Comments

  1. I have yet to see this film and I usually watch after all the hype about a film dies down a bit. Several of my immediate family members and a couple of cousins swears by this film’s awesomeness. I am always skeptical about these types of films. So I am waiting patiently for a possible review copy of it and truly am trying not to read too many reviews about it. But I could not resist reading what you thought 🙂 Found footage seems to be all the rave nowadays.

    • It definitely has a lot of hype. I’m not sure it quite lives up to all the hype, but it’s one of the better of its brand of film in a while.

      Found footage is definitely all the rave, but I think it’s something that needs a bit of a review and rethink, which is what Chronicle has sorta done.

  2. Glad you liked this. I’m not a found-footage movie fan but I loved Cloverfield a few years ago and maybe this can hit the spot once again. Looking forward to rent it when it becomes available…

  3. Nice review! I like the concept, so I’ll for sure rent this one. Glad that you didn’t get a headache from the documentary-style camera work, sometimes I do when I watch stuff like that on the big screen.

    • No, definitely no headache. The hand held is very smooth… with reason! I’ll let you watch it to find that out 😉

  4. Good review Jaina. There isn’t much new or different this film is doing or saying but the format works perfectly and gets us inside the heads of these characters through all of the fun and not-so fun moments as well.

  5. I saw the trailer for this a while back and thought it looked quite interesting. Glad to see it gets the Jaina thumbs up! Adding to my ‘must definitely watch’ list 🙂

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