Chronicle

[polkablues]

Spoilerific Trailer

Release Date: February 3, 2012

Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Dane Dehaan, Alex Russell

Directed by: Josh Trank

Premise: 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.  

[Reel]

Shit looks pretty cool, but who is falling for the fake documentary gimmick anymore? What is this, 1999?

[polkablues]

Disregarding the found footage gimmick and the set-in-Seattle-shot-in-British-Columbia factor, this seems to have the potential to be something special.  It looks like what I imagined Heroes could have been like before I actually watched Heroes.

It also seems to make the necessity of an American remake of Akira an even mooter point than before.

[squints]

Man i'll fucking watch anything with Michael Jordan in it. Believe that.

[DocSportello]

Looks cool. You were right about the spoilers, the trailer almost comes off as desperate. Any guess as to what it's going to be rated? Hope it's above PG but I have a feeling that is exactly where this one is going to fall.

[polkablues]

Neither IMDB nor Wikipedia list a rating for it yet, but I would put my money on a PG-13.  It certainly doesn't look like it's trying to be a kids' movie.

[polkablues]

Has anybody else seen this yet? Because it's pretty great. The found footage conceit gets a little mannered at times, but it's a strong character-based action movie, and oddly one of the more realistic portrayals of the high school experience that I've seen in a film.

[RegularKarate]

Has anybody else seen this yet? Because it's pretty great. The found footage conceit gets a little mannered at times, but it's a strong character-based action movie, and oddly one of the more realistic portrayals of the high school experience that I've seen in a film.

Oh yeah... I saw this opening weekend and just never posted about it.

I really did like it.  It made me a little upset that it could have been SOOOOOO much better if they had dropped the found footage element.  I think they just took the "Realistic" part of 'Realistic Super Hero Movie" the wrong way.

Still, it was a really good approach to a classic super-hero story.  I'll be keeping an eye on this Trank guy.

[Tortuga]

I thought this was rather awful. Teenage fantasy storyline taking itself quite seriously, presented in a visual language its target audience is supposed to relate to. It's like fucking Nightbreed or something, but for the ipad generation.

[Reel]

haha ^ first negative review I've read. I'm expecting it to be more bad than good, curious to see which quality outweighs the other..

[polkablues]

If literally every review you've seen has been positive, save one, why would you assume the movie's more bad than good?

[Reel]

 Based on my first impression from the trailer, the CGI seems too distracting for it to be a successful found footage film. It seems to be coming off the wave of Paranormal Activity's box office draw and that bothers me. I don't think I'm the target demographic for this film, but based on what you guys have said, it must have a good story and the found footage aspect is the weakest part. I just wonder if the story can be good enough to detract from that other, shitty element.

[polkablues]

The CGI is actually largely inoffensive, at least to my eye. As far as the found footage angle, it's not the camerawork or the aesthetic itself that's a problem, but how far they have to bend over backward to justify it at points. Even so, I was engrossed in the film throughout. I like the fact that it took itself seriously; it's not a winking, self-aware movie, and it's stronger for it. Not to say it's a perfect film, but I found that the stuff that worked made it easy to shrug off the stuff that didn't.

[The Ultimate Badass]

I thought this was a very good feature film debut for writer Max Landis and director Max Trank.

SPOILERS

I've always wished someone would make a movie that would realistically explore the idea of ordinary people suddenly endowed with superpowers and the limitless possibilities this would present. The first 45 minutes of this film held such promise. I thought the way this movie dealt with the character's discovering their new abilities was skillful and fun to watch.

Then this movie reaches a crossroads where it must decide whether it wants to be a movie about big ideas or a popcorn flick.

The big idea--essentially, three gods walking the Earth. How do they interact with humanity? How does humanity interact with them? Would they be worshiped? Would they have competing religions based around each one? And how do they interact with one another? And on, and on, and on.

Unfortunately, these questions are academic, because they went the popcorn route. Kill off one of the supers, just to make things neat and tidy for the big cliched one-on-one hyper-destructive superhero battle in the big city between two two supers. This was uninteresting to me. I've seen it before so many times, and done so much better. We all have.

Which leads me to the found footage device utilized by this film. Everyone cringed when they heard this film incorporated this cliche. Initially it's pretty believable and unobtrusive, but I soon found the movie contorting itself in ridiculous ways to stay faithful to this device. Particularly in the end where we watch much of the climax via security cameras and iPhone footage for no other reason that to maintain this found footage device. The actual result of all this was, emotionally, to totally remove myself from what I was watching. Suddenly it's the 11 o'clock news.

I think the found footage thing was a mistake. I understand the closeness and intimacy one can achieve with this device, but you could probably go farther with a faux dogme 95 scheme. Keep it raw and up close with people doing doing unreal things and make it seem like it was done with shitty amateur video, etc..

Still, even if done right, the directing could't have saved the third act. It's simply a regurgitated superhero fight disaster movie. It could have been so much more.

[socketlevel]

You should see unbreakable if that's what you've always wanted.

I thought it was my favorite popcorn movie of the year. As I've mentioned before, I'm a huge akira fan (both film and manga) and I thought they did a good job telling a similar story, albeit much smaller scale and not going as deep into the sociopathy of power, superiority, and mild omnipotence. Akira is much grittier and exposes perversion (especially in the manga) whereas this is somewhere in the middle, kinda like if the Friday Night Lights people were behind the production of the Japanese classic (I admit I feel this way aided by the fact Michael B. Jordan is in it).


***SPOILS***

One prime example where this film, while doing a good job, overstates when Akira would be more restrained was when the father visits the antagonist in the hospital. As i was watching I was playing out the rest of the scene in my head. What i really wanted was the father to start crying and saying his "I'm sorry" speech, the boy would still be in the coma and suddenly the father blasts out of the window, through some type of unconscious telekinetic power within the boy to his inevitable death. Maybe then the boy could have opened his eyes, waking up, and feeling a sense of release from killing his father. This way it would show how far gone the character is, and would support the ending; understanding the only way to stop the boy is by killing him. He would have a too little too late approach to his father because he kills him after admission of guilt.

I know the point of the scene is to show even though the boy has these immense powers he is still afraid of his father. but the way i describe what i wanted shows the sickness of that character better. sadly the safer way to do that is have the father suddenly turn his emotion and blame the boy, and the boy wakes up and a dramatic scene ensues. It makes the character less drunk and sociopathic on the power.

I have a strong suspicion Otomo would have done it similar to the sensibilities I mentioned.

I don't think this film will be a classic, but I enjoyed it a lot.