Chronicle

Josh Trank’s “Chronicle” further intensifies the stigma of being a creepy loner, almost as much as Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” and Michael Powell’s “Peeping Tom” did all the way back in 1960. The only difference here is that the creepy loner in “Chronicle” is not a psychotic serial killer, but instead a teenage boy who is bullied by schoolmates and regularly beaten by his own father – the film shows how a boy such as this would deal with his personal problems if given superhuman abilities beyond our understanding; as it turns out, he’d use them very much to his advantage and very much to our disadvantage.

This boy is Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan), a high school kid living with his father (Michael Kelly, “The Adjustment Bureau”), a drunken, abusive ex-fireman who now lives off insurance money following an injury on the job. Andrew’s mother is terminally ill and spends her days and nights coughing away in bed and feeding off expensive medication. Andrew has one friend, his cousin Matt (Alex Russell), who drives Andrew to school and doesn’t particularly like him, although he is mostly nice to him.

One night, during a rave party, Andrew, Matt and popular jock Steve (Michael B. Jordan, “Red Tails”) discover a small hole in the ground that leads to an underground tunnel. While exploring the inside of this dark and mysterious tunnel, they find a strange glowing object that they caress and are hypnotised by. Next thing they know, Andrew, Matt and Steve are suddenly granted with superpowers; they can move objects with their minds, make themselves impenetrable and also have the ability to fly.

Of course, they at first test their powers, develop them, learn how to properly use them and are soon using them to fool around and play pranks (moving parked cars from one parking spot to another, making a little girl forever terrified of teddy bears, etc.). The trio eventually decide together that they must not tell anyone about their newly discovered powers nor use them in public or on another human being; unsurprisingly, it doesn’t take very long for them to break these rules, especially for Andrew.

“Chronicle” is filmed in the found-footage format, which I’m not going to explain again; by this point, you really should know what a found-footage film is. It’s the first superhero flick to be filmed in the format and I suspect it will not be the last. The film is shot mostly from Andrew’s perspective; as it’s established in the opening scene, Andrew has recently taken up filming (or “chronicling”) his surroundings with a camera, and the footage he shoots serves as our eyesight for much of the film.

This format is used very well in the film; it doesn’t feel forced or unnecessary, instead feeling very natural and at times unnoticeable. This is a result of much creativity on the part of first-time director Josh Trank and first-time screenwriter Max Landis; for example, Andrew films much of his footage while making the camera levitate in the air and revolve around him and the other characters, almost as if the film is being shot in “normal” mode. Our eyesight is also taken from the perspective of other cameras at some points in the film, in particular during the explosive third act, during which we jump between police cameras and CCTV footage, all done with smoothness and clarity. Trank and Landis have taken this increasingly tedious format, picked it apart and have breathed new life into its wheezy lungs, which is a lot more than I can say for recent found-footage clunkers “Apollo 18” and “The Devil Inside.”

We have in Andrew a very interesting character, and the film handles him with care and attention. Andrew is a character who goes on a fully believable and, more importantly, convincing emotional journey throughout the film. He is a boy who is beaten, bullied and emotionally unstable, and is all of a sudden granted the powers of a god; how exactly he will use these powers to presumably strike back is intriguing and ultimately very compelling – not to give too much away, but if you’ve seen “Carrie,” you should have a general idea of how this all pans out.

“Chronicle” works as a high-school drama, as a science-fiction actioner and as a dark and intimate character study. It’s a carefully crafted blockbuster spectacle and a smartly constructed found-footage flick. It’s intelligent, cool, gripping, well-acted, well-directed, sometimes funny, sometimes exhilarating and always entertaining. It’s a refreshing superhero origin story, and also a wonderful morality tale, the moral being to never, ever, under any circumstances, allow a creepy loner to gain superpowers.

8/10