Josh Trank
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Power Rangers (2017)
Directed by Dean Israelite
influenced by Chronicle (2012), Fantastic Four (2015)
Themes Plot
As many have snarkily observed since the first trailer for Power Rangers was released, the film’s primary basis of comparison is less the original series than Chronicle, Josh Trank’s 2012 revisionist superhero film that recast new powers as an allegory for the hardest parts of adolescence.
Throughout the course of this overlong 124-minute sci-fi action-adventure/coming-of-age superhero dramedy, “Power Rangers” pays homage to, attempts to replicate, or simply steals from “The Breakfast Club,” “Thor,” “Chronicle,” “Transformers,” “Pacific Rim,” “Children Of Men,” “Iron Man,” “Spider-Man,” 2009’s “Star Trek” and maybe “Gods Of Egypt.”
Power Rangers takes the venerable Saturday morning TV franchise and morphs it through a food processor with Chronicle and of all things, The Breakfast Club .
A juvenile live action superhero franchise turned brooding origin tale (think “Chronicle”) is bad news for everyone; it’s especially bad news for “Project Almanac” filmmaker Dean Israelite.
Coming off his 2015 feature, “Project Almanac,” the director, Dean Israelite, has made yet another teen-centric science-fiction adventure that invites comparison with “Chronicle” (2012), which tackled similar themes of youthful bullying and alienation with far greater visual and conceptual intelligence.
In fact, the teens' slow realization and acceptance of who they are is more reminiscent of Chronicle (though with less angst and violence) than a Saturday morning cartoon.
The other tribute to Cronenberg is a blatant homage to the famous “head explosion” from Scanners.
Trank name-dropped David Cronenberg and his body horror shtick as an influence, but that winds up manifesting itself as mere references: our heroes get plastered before teleporting themselves and come back spliced with other things; Doom’s assault on soldiers sports hard-PG-13 versions of “Scanners”’s bloody head implosions.
Those thoughts later gelled with Trank’s own from earlier this year, especially after he cited the work of David Cronenberg as an influence — specifically, 1981’s Scanners and 1986’s The Fly .
The movie, against all odds, becomes the darkly perverse version of a superhero origin story, fused with the nerd's-revenge climax of Carrie (and even with a touch of King Kong).
Feature film newcomer Josh Trank, with writing partner Max Landis, brings a fresh approach to the telekinetic super power film that has not been really explored since 1976 with Stephen King’s “Carrie.”
Directed by Josh Trank and written by Trank and Max Landis (John’s son), the movie throws a lot of influences into its pot, including “Carrie’’ (the hero has a drunken lout of a dad, played by Michael Kelly), “The Invisible Man,’’ and real-life high school rampages.
One-part X-Men , three-parts Carrie and a smidgen Peep Show.
Three teenage buddies gain mysterious telekinetic powers in yet another "found footage" thriller, an ingenious "Carrie"-meets-"Spider-Man"- meets-"The Blair Witch Project" construction that suggests — contrary to Marvel Comics lore — that fate is as likely to bestow a superpower on an abused, resentful, psychologically damaged high-school loser as on an inherently decent Peter Parker type.
A male "Carrie" for the 21st century, a skeptical, heartbroken reaction to the nonstop horseshit of the "chosen one" myth that has been force fed a generation ad nauseam, "Chronicle" is lean and scary and sad, and director Josh Trank and writer Max Landis have ample reason to be proud of what they've done.
Having devolved from a brilliant conceit in The Blair Witch Project (1999) to something bordering on the mundane after so many Paranormal Activities, the first-person handheld aesthetic now comes laden with the immediate need for justification: Is it really necessary?
Faux-documentaries face an uphill battle in two ways: the acting must be 100% naturalistic so as to not seem like acting at all, and they must somehow tell their stories without becoming a derivative, shaky-cammed aping of past like-minded films like 1999's " The Blair Witch Project " and 2007's " [REC] ."
Chronicle is a teen-outcast science-fiction movie told in the low-budget, found-footage style of The Blair Witch Project.
It is yet another “found footage” movie, a la “The Blair Witch Project” and “Paranormal Activity,” but uses telekinetic power to “free” the camera, allowing for creative images.
Thirteen years after “The Blair Witch Project’’ kicked it off, the found-footage genre is finally expanding its boundaries beyond ghost stories (“Paranormal Activity’’), monsters (“Cloverfield’’), and demons (“The Devil Inside’’).
It's also -- unfortunately -- another variation of the "found footage" flick that hit mainstream popularity long ago with "The Blair Witch Project" and occasionally keeps rearing its ugly (and almost always unbelievable) head.
That goes back ages too; Robert Montgomery used it as the star and director of the 1947 Lady in the Lake, with a subjective camera that saw only what detective Philip Marlowe saw — including himself, occasionally, in a mirror.
Movies.com > Movie News > 'Chronicle' Meets 'Iron Man' Meets 'Menace II Society' in 'Sleight'…
One could see the film as akin to “Chronicle” or the year-one origin-story of a stripped down Miles Morales “Spider-Man” movie, before he actually transforms into a hero.
The combination that kept entering my mind as I watched it was “ Chronicle ” meets “ Dope ,” both in terms of its substance and what it similarly achieves with a minimal budget.
Like a cross between Chronicle and Dope with a dash of Now You See Me, Sleight follows a talented young street magician named Bo (Jacob Latimore) who is not only reluctantly caught up in the drug trade, but is experimenting on his own body to improve his illusions.
It’s as if Dillard wants to one-up “Chronicle” (which he manages to do in the cinematography department, at least), or else pile on to M. Night Shyamalan’s fast-expanding “Unbreakable” universe (Blum also produced the hit “Split,” after all).
On the surface, “Sleight” resembles an indie superhero film in the vein of Josh Trank’s “Chronicle”.
Brightburn will probably draw comparisons to other darker superhero flicks like Chronicle or Split.
While not entirely original (the superior 2012 film Chronicle dealt with similar material), Brightburn delivers on its promise as a tense filled sci-fi horror, with much in the way of gruesome (yet thankfully not exploitative) pay-offs that will shock many.
The 2012 drama Chronicle wielded a similar scenario when a high school kid acquired superpowers and allowed his own petty human foibles to sour the gift — perhaps because Brandon is an e.t., the Gunns opted to make him just a surly individual with no remorse for anything.
You can compare Brandon’s character outline to Dane DeHaan’s Andrew from Chronicle.
No tenemos, ni siquiera, el intento de Chronicle pensando en Akira.
But the result is a one-dimensional splatter fest instead of something a little more complete like Josh Trank’s 2012 film “Chronicle.”
Director Josh Trank uses the cinéma-vérité–style device of “found footage” in Chronicle, referencing The Blair Witch Project and making us think of the Gothic bits of Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity .
It is yet another “found footage” movie, a la “The Blair Witch Project” and “Paranormal Activity,” but uses telekinetic power to “free” the camera, allowing for creative images.
Thirteen years after “The Blair Witch Project’’ kicked it off, the found-footage genre is finally expanding its boundaries beyond ghost stories (“Paranormal Activity’’), monsters (“Cloverfield’’), and demons (“The Devil Inside’’).
The whole affair is conveniently captured on film thanks to the decision by Andrew (Dane DeHaan) to begin chronicling (wink) his entire life, thereby placing this film as the latest entry in the burgeoning 'found footage' genre (think Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity and Cloverfield).
The REC and Paranormal Activity series, Troll Hunter, Apollo 18 and others have run with the baton with mixed results, and now Chronicle is here to take it in a very different direction.
“Chronicle” is the latest found-footage, shaky-camera fad film in a string of many prior to it including the wildly successful and profitable “Paranormal Activity” films (now four of them in total), 2010’s “The Last Exorcism,” 2008’s “Cloverfield” and 1999’s “The Blair Witch Project”.
…ith the exception of “The Blair Witch Project” and “ Cloverfield ,” the whole found-footage craze has generally failed to impress me as a viable storytelling device.
Obviously this loner, who has an abusive father and terminally ill mother, cares more about establishing a barrier between himself and the rest of the world than recognizing the whole found footage thing could have gone away after “Cloverfield” and no one would have complained.
The gimmick never lets you forget that this is “Cloverfield” meets “Fantastic Four.”
This little film which seemingly came out of nowhere seems just like what we don't need - another found footage film - and even though it is often derivative (think "Carrie" crossed with "Cloverfield"), director Josh Trank (TV's 'The Kill Point'), who also concocted the story with screenwriter Max Landis (TV's 'Masters of Horror' and 'Fear Itself'), has a fresh voice, a sure hand with special effects and appealing leads.
Chronicle wants to be more interesting, more complicated than its found-footage counterparts (Cloverfield, Blair Witch Project, etc.), and in many ways, it is.
The buzz: This attempt to combine the found footage phenomenon (of movies like “Cloverfield,” “Paranormal Activity” and “The Devil Inside”) with a superhero saga comes from two 26-year-old Hollywood newcomers: director Josh Trank and screenwriter Max Landis (son of “Animal House” director John Landis).
Unfortunately, like Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus , neither the boys nor the film's director and screenwriter (Max Landis, son of John Landis and costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis) can think of anything to do with these special gifts that is not frivolous, playful or malevolent.
For a truly freaky found-footage movie, grab Bertrand Tavernier’s 1980 Death Watch, with Harvey Keitel having a camera implanted in his brain so he can secretly film a famous actress with a fatal disease.
The gimmick never lets you forget that this is “Cloverfield” meets “Fantastic Four.”
By the way, first-time feature director Josh Trank is reportedly the top choice to help Fox reboot the “Fantastic Four” series.
With Fox advertising the movie on their network and cable shows, it should have more appeal to teen and slightly older guys, partially due to Fox deliberately leaking that director Joshua Trank may be up for the "Fantastic Four" reboot in order to entice superhero fans into theaters to check out his work, although anyone who remembersJumper may give this one a wide berth.
By eliminating the intrinsically Japanese context and focusing on the character dynamics from Katsuhiro Otomo's manga and anime film, Chronicle has pretty much squelched the proposed "official" remake before it could even begin production, much in the same way that The Incredibles made Tim Story’s Fantastic Four movie seem thoroughly unnecessary, regardless of the latter film’s more prominent legacy (and also largely because of its lack of quality , relative or otherwise).
Like Paul Verhoeven's "Robocop," this is a movie that plays like it was adapted from a comic book, with a very specific and polished energy, but which was not adapted from anything.
Like 2010's Kick-Ass , it exists beneath the superhero umbrella but seems nothing like a Batman, Spider-Man, Superman, or X-Men.
If 2010's bloody, profane " Kick-Ass " was prematurely labeled a game-changer upon release, it has nothing on this film's vibrant, uninhibited aims of revitalization.
But this isn't a family-friendly superhero flick like The Incredibles or Sky High, nor is it a costume-clad wish-fulfillment fantasy like Kick-Ass or Super.
It’s nowhere near as brutal or masochistic as Kick-Ass, a movie that hovers in the same neighborhood as Chronicle.
The screenplay has a lot of good ideas and neat gimmicks but it is pretty uneven as well thanks to paper-thin character development, unironic deployment of genre cliches (without giving too much away, I can say that Steve's fate is pretty much sealed from the first moment that we see him) and a finale so weirdly abrupt that it almost feels like Landis' strange homage to the climax of his dad's "An American Werewolf in London."
Chronicle‘s script, by Max Landis (the 26-year-old son of An American Werewolf in London director John Landis), eases into the horror.
The tone and style of the film are akin to Josh Trank’s surprising 2012 sci-fi “Chronicle.”
That’s not to say that we haven’t gotten a couple of decent found footage films along the way, including “Cloverfield” and “Chronicle,” but for every decent one, we’ve wound up with a multitude of dreadfully awful entries such as multiple “Paranormal Activity” films, “The Last Exorcism,” and a pair of “V/H/S” flicks.
The narrative's transformation into a Chronicle-like look at Derek's emerging powers is, though initially intriguing, increasingly tedious, with the repetitive atmosphere compounded by Lee and Prowse's refusal to introduce other characters into the mix - with the limitations of this format becoming more and more clear as time progresses (ie the film often feels like just another found-footage horror flick).
That also makes Afflicted distinct from Chronicle since it’s on Derek the whole time.
For me, that movie was Chronicle, a “found footage” superhero movie mixing elements of psychological suspense with astounding camera work and truly gripping storytelling – a welcome curveball amidst so many spandex wearing super-humans.
Since then, the sequels to "Paranormal Activity" and the action-horror installment "Chronicle" have continued to capitalize on the prospects of using CGI in the context of found footage.
What follows suggests a cross between “An American Werewolf in London” and the ingenious 2012 found-footage thriller “Chronicle,” and there is no shortage of wicked, stinging moments as Clif and Derek’s attempts to resume their vacation plans go horrifically awry.
Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (2006)
Directed by Richard Donner
influenced Chronicle (2012)
Visuals
Brutal and, at times, gut-churning, it's the most exhilarating spectacle of urban destruction since Superman II.
The imagery of him hanging in the air over Seattle, bloody and bandaged like an escaped mental patient, gives the film’s climactic battle (which is willfully reminiscent of the aerial super-powered smackdown in Superman II) an edge of sadness that goes a long way toward redeeming some of the film’s sillier conceits.
Directed by Josh Trank and scripted by Max Landis (from a story developed by both), Chronicle reimagines the superhero myth for a universe that lacks comforting moral order, and unlike M. Night Shyamalan's "real world" superhero story Unbreakable, Chronicle plays against instead of into the prevailing comic-book archetypes.
Compare Chronicle to what history is vetting out as the only good M. Night Shyamalan flick, Unbreakable: it's missing that film's sense of awe, sense of (what has come clear as exceedingly rare in Shyamalan's pursuits) respect for what the hero mythology of comics means, and has always meant, to 98lb.
Indies like The Specials, Defendor, Super, and Special -- and bigger flicks like Unbreakable, Hancock, and The Incredibles -- have done a surprisingly good job of mixing the escapism we expect with some emotional / psychological insights we might not.
Directed by Josh Trank and written by Trank and Max Landis (John’s son), the movie throws a lot of influences into its pot, including “Carrie’’ (the hero has a drunken lout of a dad, played by Michael Kelly), “The Invisible Man,’’ and real-life high school rampages.