One of the greatest success stories to ever come out of Hollywood would have to be the movie “The Blair Witch Project”. Made for only $15,000 it went on to gross more than $100 million. The side effect is that it made a sub-genre of movies popular, the camcorder/home video style movie. What this genre basically is that there is no 4th wall camera used to tell the story as most movies are typically shot. Instead, one of the characters owns a video camera of some sort and the story is told through that camera. The newest movie to enter this genre is “Chronicle”.
The “rules” to this genre vary, but it lets the characters in the movie acknowledge the camera, for one thing, since one of their friends, another character in the movie, is operating it. While unique, this style of filmmaking usually comes with a couple of drawbacks. One is the shaky camera. Since these types of movies are usually shot with a handheld camera, the character rarely use a tripod, the camera is often VERY shaky in many scenes, especially action scenes. So instead of getting to see the action we usually see the camera shooting the ground while we hear the action in the background. This let’s the audience use their imaginations, but in actuality, it usually just frustrates people.
The second problem with this genre is that there is almost a point in these movies where the people watching think to themselves, “Why don’t they just put the camera down and get out of there? Why are they still shooting?” This or a similar question of why a camera is shooting a particular scene almost always takes an audience out of the movie.
“Chronicle” is about three high school students, the popular class president, Steve (Michael B. Jordan), the class outcast, Andrew (Dane DeHaan) and Matt (Alex Russell) the student who just gets along with everyone. One night these three students come across a strange object and shortly thereafter find they all have developed telekinetic powers. At first, they start having fun with their new found abilities, as learning to move all sorts of objects just by thinking about them and soon use their powers to fly. As time moves on their bond is put to the test as one of them begins to use his powers with dark purposes.
Most of “Chronicle” is shot with a video camera that Andrew introduces at the beginning of the movie. He announces he is going to start shooting everything around him, so the camera follows him wherever he goes. One inventive way the movie lets all three characters be in a shot is that Andrew will often use his powers to have the camera float away from them so they all can be seen in a shot. Plus, any camera can be used to tell this story. The female love interest for Alex is Casey (Ashley Hinshaw), who often carries around a camera herself and the story is sometimes shot from her camera. Other times the action is captured through a security camera, a traffic camera or someone’s cell phone and this lets the story be shown in an expanded fashion from the typical camcorder movie.
“Chronicle” does have its entertainment value. The audience who saw it at an advanced screening in Boca Raton often laughed and got into the action scenes of the movie, but once it was over the overall consensus was that the movies was “Just okay”. A fair assessment. It’s pretty easy to see what direction the movie is going and it is not a surprise to see which character is the one who turns “bad”, he even looks like a super villain by the end of the movie as there is a final showdown between good and evil.
The special effects does help “Chronicle” stand out and make it a more watchable movie. If the effects are not good the movie will fail; but, everything looks good. Whether the characters are simply moving toys around or when they are flying around with airplanes passing nearby, everything looks like it was really captured by a home movie camera. While "Chronicle” may be predictable, the characters treat their situation in a very real way so we are never completely taken out of reality.
The title of the movie is certainly appropriate since all the action in the movie is being chronicled. A title to indicate that this is some sort of superhero movie could have been used, but “Chronicle” is much better title. The movie does suffer from the above mentioned flaws that go along with this type of movie. There is one scene where one of the characters ends up in the hospital and the camera is right there with him, filming. How did the camera get there and who turned it on? Still, most of us go to the movies to be entertained and we tend to leave logic at the door so many should feel they got their money’s worth from this movie. “Chronicle” is rated PG-13 for intense action and violence, thematic material, some language, sexual content and teen drinking.
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