Movies: Chronicle
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan) is finding
new powers and lots of new troubles.
Photo: Mark Hatfield/20th Century Fox
Poor Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan). At school he is an outsider, essentially friendless, except for his cousin Matt (Alex Russell) and at home his abusive father (Michael Kelly) makes his life miserable. Apparently in an effort to compensate and create the life he wants to have, Andrew has begun to videotape his life. He records at school, at dances, at home, using his camera to create a chronicle of his world.
At a dance, Matt and Steve (Michael B. Jordan), the captain of the football team, ask Andrew to film something they found outdoors — a large hole from which loud, odd noises emanate. The three boys go into the hole to explore. There they discover a large object that glows blue. Steve reaches out to touch the object and the boys’ noses begin to bleed profusely and they suffer great pain. As the scene blacks out, the glow shifts from blue to red.
It turns out, weeks later, that the three have developed telekinetic powers that, they learn, become stronger and sharper the more they exercise them. The eventually learn they can fly and they vow to travel the world that way after they graduate. At that point, Andrew says he wants to go to Tibet, seeking the peace and tranquility he imagines he’ll find there.
Steve, sensing Andrew’s loneliness feels bad for him and, in an attempt to make him more popular, invites Andrew to enter the school talent show. Using his new talent, Andrew wows the crowd. The tactic succeeds and Andrew is the center of attention at a party. Sadly, he drinks too much and, alone with a girl for the first time, he vomits on her, causing him to once again be a pariah.
Again feeling for his friend, Steve tries to console Andrew after the party but the latter just becomes angrier and angrier. At that, Steve is struck by lightning and Andrew blames himself. He becomes more and more withdrawn and angry. He ultimately unleashes all of his power and energy to wreak havoc all over Seattle while Matt tries to stop him.
With a script by Max Landis from a story he wrote with the film’s director Josh Trank, Chronicle is sci-fi light. The answers to the big questions in the movie — what was the thing in the hole and why did it endow the boys with the telekinetic powers — go unanswered. But, unlike most sci-fi, we become interested in the people involved. We like them and we care about them.
Chronicle is excellent for what it is — a story of adolescent misfits who stumble on to something extraordinary and have to deal with the results.
(2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
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