A low-fi genre hybrid that attempts to cash in on both the burgeoning trend of “found footage” thrillers and superhero origin stories, Chronicle only scratches the surface of its junior-level Magneto narrative. Leaning on an increasingly ineffective patchwork blend of diegetic sources, the movie opts for showy theatrics and set pieces over more honest character investment, and ultimately fritters away a quite promising concept. For the full, original review, from Screen International, click here. (20th Century Fox, PG-13, 84 minutes)
I can’t fully agree with this review. Yes, some of the camera work could have been handled a bit more creatively, and every once in a while the special effects looked a bit wonky, but all that takes a back seat to the main characters and the realistic portrayal of these teenagers – appropriately lame, at times, which I felt made them endearing in their honesty – as they investigate their situation. To claim that it “opts for showy theatrics and set pieces over more honest character investment” is simply disingenuous because, as far as superhero films go, this one had way more put into building the characters and way less focus on set piece moments. I can’t understand seeing it the way you described.
The film did have some flaws, along with the uneven special effects and camera work I felt that parts of the dialog felt somewhat clunky and I also would have done things differently with the ending (though it was far better and more meaningful than most movies of this ilk provide), but I think most of those flaws fall by the wayside because the acting was just that natural that you buy into the characters and the situation to the point that you feel like you’re the fourth member of the group. That’s hard to pull off, and because of that I can’t see how you could consider it a “cash in” in either genre that you mentioned; it utilizes the first person perspective to bring life to a high school daydream fantasy of suddenly being gifted with super powers, and it does so with comparative honesty. It does the origin story better than most (if not all) and provides a purpose for the found footage style. Sure, from a producer’s stand point it’s meant to make money, and perhaps it wouldn’t have been made/released if these two genres weren’t trending, but isn’t that true about the vast majority of films? The film makers themselves clearly cared and I think they did a fine enough job to deserve being defended from this kind of lazy review.
Hey, if you didn’t like it you didn’t like it, but figure out why that is rather than simply going for the obvious attack, when it doesn’t even apply, with the assumption that it’ll be “good enough”. You could easily, unfairly deter potential fans from seeing this film because your criticisms are the exact things that viewers have been disappointed with before in the recent influx of comic book/superhero movies, and would be very discouraged from seeing again in something which suggests from the trailer that it goes against those very trends in a promising way. It’s by no means perfect, but it treats the audience with respect, and while I certainly wouldn’t want to see a bunch of Chronicle copycats, it does a number of things right that I believe future superhero films could learn from and build on.
P.S. Using the term “air-quote” in written form simply doesn’t make sense. Just put actual quotes around the word, in this case “cool”. I’ve never seen that done before. Perhaps you were just caught up in trying to sound
“hip”.