Well I’ve gotten around to the first on my list of movies to see, and hope to catch the other two this Tuesday.
Chronicle is a scifi film that shows what happens when you give a bunch of ordinary high school kids the power of telekinesis. Three boys descend into a mysterious hole and encounter a strange glowing rock which gives them slowly growing telekinetic powers. I know, it sounds cheesy, but how they get their powers is not the important part. It’s what they do with them and how they’re changed by them.
Chronicle is a movie about temptation and power. It shows how the average person and even the better person is too frail and unstable to handle great power; their own problems and faults become magnified by it. The movie makes you wonder what you’d do with such power and encourages you not to delude yourself. At my ripe old age, perhaps I’d be able to think through such powers, but the younger people in the film don’t have a chance.
The movie is structured like a found video film, recorded on a handcam by one of the boys. The concept works, allowing you to watch the story from a particular perspective and also allows you to forgive some (purposeful) awkward editing and gaps in the story. It comes in at under 90 minutes, but didn’t seem to be too short. Longer may have been overkill.
I’d give this film an unlikely A-.
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