Chronicle

Chronicle is a low-budget sci-fi built around a really good premise. What would really happen if a group of average-ish real American teenagers were given superpowers? Would they become superheroes (with great power comes great responsibility and all that jazz) or would they use them to have fun, play practical jokes, etc...? Then what would happen if one of those teenagers was a socially awkward boy with a dying mum, an abusive alcoholic father and rather poor impulse control.

Of course, a lot of low budget films have great ideas, it's the execution that lets them down. Here, director Josh Trank gets close to getting it right. The young cast generally do a really good job - Dane DeHaan as the troubled Andrew is particularly good and carries most of the film - and they are aided by some strong supports in the (few) adult roles. The script is generally strong and the pacing is good. We have a nice introduction to the characters prior to the encounter with the alien object that gives them their powers (telekinesis and levitation), there's a real sense of menace in the scenes involving Andrew's father, mixed with lighter moments as the three boys experiment with their powers to pull off magic tricks and play practical jokes, etc... and a slow build up to the finale when Andrew fully goes off the rails.

The finale is not bad, but it does let the film down a bit. This is almost entirely due to the decision to place the film in the found footage genre (i.e. the entire film is supposedly shot from camera(s) actually there in the action.) There have been some stunning examples where this has worked really well - think of Cloverfield or last year's Troll Hunter. In these cases the the medium actually served a narrative and artistic purpose - footage as evidence surviving a catastrophe or a government cover-up - and actually enhanced the story that was being told. Also, in those examples all the footage came from a singular source. Here, it's not totally clear why they took that route (except perhaps budgetary reasons?) but it doesn't really work. The single source route is abandoned early on and by the finale they are cutting between so many sources, so quickly and having to work so hard to get all these "cameras" into the action that it becomes distracting and confusing. Even then there are moments when you'll be left scratching your head thinking who's actually shooting this.

Overall - 7/10 There's clearly talent here and a great idea which almost makes a very good film, but is let down by one bad choice.