DVDs & Films Forum - Chronicle - Page 1

Just got back from seeing this, and thoroughly enjoyed myself - as did the young couple directly behind me, but for entirely different reasons.

It's not perfect, but I'll get to that. Firstly, it's not a 'found footage' movie, such as Cloverfield, Blair witch or Troll Hunter. We're simply witness to the events as they unfold through the medium of several different recording devices.

We're first introduced to Andrew, whos life is as ****ty as it gets. His mum is dying, his father is a deadbeat drunk who spends the mothers' medication money on booze, he's bullied at school. This doesn't bode well for the birth of a superhero. Matt, his cousin, takes him to school, but mainly gives him the time of day - to a degree.

One evening at a party (American kids only seems to have cottoned onto the concept of a 'rave', complete with glowsticks), The class president-hopeful, Steve, convinces Andrew to bring his camcorder to a hole in the ground, where they join matt and, naturally jump down the hole, come face to face with a spiky alien meteor of some description, and obtain super powers.

The next section is good fun with the trio evolving their new found powers through hi-jinks involving shopping trolleys, teddy bears and red BMWs. Of course, Andrew becomes proficient at a faster rate, and while the fun continues, you know all the crap he had to take at the start will come to a payoff later.(Starting with that bit you saw in the trailer).

It's a good film. The three relative newcomers do very well, the plot is solid enough, and the action exciting enough. The niggles are few, but they are glaring.

At a point in their evolution, they discover they can fly, and while, to start, you can understand their unsteadiness, there are points where they're supposed to have had this ability for months, yet when they're just hovering, it looks like they're suspended from wires.

Yes, I know they WERE suspended from wires, but this is 2012, not Highlander. Movie FX has come past the stage where the supposed 'alpha male' is leaning forward slightly, obviously pivoting on a harness, and having to regain his balance by waving his hands about. Some of the backdrops and greenscreens could have done with some refining, but the biggest stand-out for me was the fact that no-one on the production team seems to have seen Akira.

There are some moments, not many, but enough in the epilogue to make you think Katsuhiro Otomo would be scratching his head, thinking 'this all looks very familiar'...


Good for what it is. Outstanding performances, particularly the camaraderie between the three leads, let down by seemingly rushed FX.

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