Chronicle (2012)
Directed by Josh Trank
Three high school students make an incredible discovery, leading to their developing uncanny powers beyond their understanding. As they learn to control their abilities and use them to their advantage, their lives start to spin out of control, and their darker sides begin to take over.
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35 films that influenced Chronicle
What critics say influenced Chronicle
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.
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”.
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…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).
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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.