Chronicle Reviews

Our Review

Finally, a good superhero movie

Dale Rolfe, MovieFix

As cool and detailed as a graphic novel but as spectacular and kinetic as a blockbuster, Chronicle will win over geeks and the popcorn-eating masses alike.

Loner Andrew (Dane DeHaan), his cousin Matt (Alex Russell) and popular kid Steve (Michael B. Jordan) discover an alien, orb-like formation at the bottom of a hole and suddenly find themselves capable of telekinesis, great strength and flying. Unfazed by the weirdness of their situation, they use it for after-school hijinks like building Lego without their hands (obviously the first thing on everyone's Superpowers To-Do list) and pranking strangers by moving their cars.

With a camera glued to his face, Andrew records all their experiences. While the trio enjoy a newfound brotherhood, the destructive powers of their abilities quickly become apparent and their good intentions rapidly unravel.

Surprisingly, this supernatural thriller is a clever and emotional film, as much about the isolation of teenagehood and the pain of loneliness as it is about explosions and special effects.

Despite a brief flirtation with popularity as a result of his powers, Andrew discovers the rules of school stay the same: the nerds stay the nerds, the popular kids stay the popular kids. His pain is visceral and DeHaan is effortless in his portrayal of the suffering teenager.

Although the entire movie is filmed in a found-footage style, it thankfully avoids the nauseating Blair Witch Project effect. The action is big but grounded; nothing feels too CGI or ridiculous, and everything builds to a mind-blowing climax.

There are some problems though: to stick to the found-footage format, other characters conveniently film each other, jarring the believability. The teenagers also too easily take everything in their stride, never questioning the source of their powers or worrying about the gushing nosebleeds they experience.

Nonetheless, these problems have little bearing on a film that finally puts an end to the run of bad superhero movies on screen of late.

Your Reviews

Stevo

Good idea. Poor story telling. Lousy cinematography. Lame story. We weren't hyper-ventilating at the end. Fair to say we thought it a bit weak and uninspiring. Yeh, four stars seems ridiculous, but I'm glad you enjoyed it.

yfi

as a teacher, I was mildly interested in this view into the teenage brain, but the artless innuendo and the predictable and unnecessary objectionable language as well as the fragmented bits of adventure without a thread made this movie no better than my daily look into the schoolyard out of my staffroom window Big fat MEH.

maddi grace

This was one of the worst movies I have ever seen! The movie made no sense what so ever and it was rushed. The end was the worst and it made me want to sneak out of the theater to watch another movie. The only good thing that I can say about this movie is that the trailer was fantastic.

Agenthorse

Wicked as man! :|>

Freyja Weust

This was a total waist of money! The story was all over the place, and you never got the chance to bond with the heros. In fact I found myself wishing they would hurry up and implode so I could go home & watch some decent SI-FI!!

Benjamony

This is not a good movie. The story is old, the acting is poor and the plot is fragmented and inconsistent. I surprised that some people gave it 4/5.

one word for this movie... BORING

Vinay Maan

i really liked this movie ^.^

Rita

I went along to this to treat my boyfriend for once because he accuses me of always picking the film... and i was surprised by how much i really enjoyed this. The characters, their acting and dialogue felt real and was engrossing.

Nicole B

I didn't really like this movie all that much. I found it was quit bland and very predictable! It doesn't give you any information as to how any of these things happened to the boys really. I'm also not a fan of the "found footage" style. Always seems all over the place to me anyway.

ali

didnt really go anywhere. just kinda ended and didnt keep me interested. to me, a waste of money.

Butch

Dale, you must have been paid good money to give such a glowing review. Its predictable boreing, the teen angst, loneliness thing has been done to death recently, (I could name at lest three movies and counting). I would wait for the DVD, even then only when there is no reality TV to watch.

mc84

I didnt think much of this move at all! I found it extremely boring and the shaky camera work extremely annoying. Would not recommend this at all. I usually love science fiction movies but this was terrible

Boring as hell cant believe you gave it 4 stars

Troy Campbell

The next in a long line of “found footage” flicks that have been flooding our cinemas over the last few years, Chronicle breaks free of the usual constraints within that sub genre to concoct a truly memorable sci-fi thriller. Retracing the steps of three teenage friends who are gifted with telekinesis after a chance encounter with something (intelligently, the movie never stipulates what exactly), the story focuses on the varying paths they take with their new found talent, but not until they have had some juvenile fun with it first. This is an amazingly accomplished debut feature for writer-director Josh Trank (who co-penned the script with Max “son of John” Landis); his technical veracity is utterly mind-blowing – especially when you consider the shoestring funds he had to work with – and his narrative pacing is impeccable. The icing on the already yummy cake is the marvellous CGI that allows our protagonists to fly, crush cars and stop baseballs in mid air – all seamlessly and photo-realistically. Chronicle is a tremendous achievement in low-budget, big-concept filmmaking.

Tom

What little there is of a story line has been much better executed in singular scenes of many other movies previously. We found the movie boring, and seriously lacking in any decent substance...

Dan, Murrumba Downs QLD

The Misfits don't grow in power. In fact their powers usually suck. These guys have unlimited mental abilities, which make them much more awesome.

Its a rip off C4 Misfits but ok

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