Film
I
Title: Chronicle
Director: Josh Trank
Seen in cinema
Saturday march 31
Review by Gregg Katzman:
2012 is a huge year for super hero movies. Marvel's The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises are casting such large shadows that it's easy to overlook the other options in the genre, but Chronicle is simply a movie you cannot miss. It's hilarious, it's dark and you'll have to pick your jaw up off the floor before you leave the cinema.
Chornicle follows three high school friends that develop superpowers after making an odd discovery near a party. The trio soon discovers that the power is just like a muscle; the more you work it out, the more powerful it will become. The primary focus is on the man with the camera, Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan). The poor guy has a dying mother with a need for medication they can't afford, a drunk and abusive father, and to top it off, the students at school treat him like dirt. Then there's Matt Garetty (Alex Russell), Andrew's cousin and Steve Montgomery (Michael B. Jordan), the most popular dude in the school. As the three have a blast messing around with the God-like abilities things go haywire and Andrew begins to abuse the powers more and more in an attempt to fix his tormented life...but naturally, the results are disastrous.
I've never been especially fond of found footage films, but Chronicle manages to pull it off without making you want to hurl into your bag of popcorn. It's never too clunky and eventually Andrew uses his telekesis to have the camera smoothly float around them. Plus, this immersive view really helps you dive into their reality when they're soaring through the sky and playing a game of catch in the clouds. It might sound silly, but you really feel like you're part of their powered experience
Chronicle is also going to juggle with your emotions. At the core it's an incredibly dark story about a good person surrounded by absloutely horrible things. Witnessing the every day struggles Andrew has to put up with is truly impacting and the second half of the film is loaded with a shocking amount of disturbingly bleak moments. But, this isn't a movie that'll leave you in a slump when you walk out the door. Laced between the moments of depression and sympathy is a plethora of feel-good and hilarious moments as the guys have a bit of fun with their powers and help Andrew come out of his shell at school.
Even though the concept is far-fetched, you'll still find yourself relating to the experience the friends are going through. You care about their developments and you'll laugh along with them as they prank others and grow closer while stumbling around with their newfound abilities. And, with a story like this, the group positively needs to be sporting excellent chemistry. Thankfully, that's just the case in Chronicle and each actor performs well, allowing the friendship to feel legitimate and not forced.
The final act of this film is going to blow you away. You'll be engrossed as the film takes a grim turn and transforms into a stunning action sequence that blasts across Seattle. Many "holy sh*t" moments shall be had.
Chronicle is a damn good movie. The characters are interesting, it'll invoke your emotions and it truly is a lot of fun to watch.
II
Most of the things that happened where outside where there weren’t to many people.
The main characters where dressed like normal teenage boys but Andrew wasn’t, he was dressed in baggy clothes and he nearly always whore the same clothes.
The location gave the effect to the things they did like fly above the clouds.
The music stayed on the back ground but made things more dramatic by playing dramatic music but it still stayed in the background.
There were hardly any special effects used in the movie.
The movie is played in logical order, you just see what happens at the time that it happens. You don’t see it from someone’s point of view.
The scene I thought was impressive was when they were flying above the clouds and it looked so real that it really looked like they were flying.
The film doesn’t have one genre it has more, I think they are Drama, Science Fiction and Thriller. Some parts in the movie are drama and because of the special effects like flying it’s science fiction and because of some of the horrible things that happen and because it’s so exciting it’s also thriller.
III
3 friends make a crazy discovery, through this they get super powers.
While they learn to control their powers they lose grip on their life. When this happens the dark side of their characters come out and lots of things go wrong. One of the characters starts to use his powers for evil things.
A big conflict in the film is when Andrew goes crazy and kills everyone who tries to stop him. His two friends try to stop him but he is stronger.
The 3 main characters are friends from high school. Two are family and the other one is just a friend. They go to places nearly every day with the 3 of them to control their powers and because of that they get really close. Before they got these powers Andrew never really fit in with anyone so it was new for him to have friends.
The characters don’t really represent anything special but you do see that good wins from evil in the end of the story.
The character I thought was most impressive was Andrew because most of the drama in the film was because of him. He couldn’t control his powers and just went crazy trying to kill people and destroy everything around him.
IV
The film is used to amuse people, it doesn’t really mean anything special it’s just a good movie to watch with a dramatic storyline.
I think the director used the effects and the things that kept happening in the film to keep people’s attention.
V
I expected a movie about 3 boys who could move things around with their powers, but they could also fly and do much more so it was more than I expected. It was a good movie.
My greatest impression was how dramatic the film was, I didn’t expect that.
When I saw the movie I was pretty impressed with the drama and the things they could do with their powers. Some things used for good but later in the movie Andrew starts using his powers for bad things, he hurts people with them. I really liked the effects that were in it, I didn’t expect things like flying. The end was a bit weird because in the beginning of the film there was some comedy and in the end it was quite heavy.
Katie Mccormick
