Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!
... View MoreIt isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.
... View Morewhat a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.
... View MoreActress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.
... View MoreI not normally a fan of hand camera movies a la Blair Witch and Cloverfield, neither of which I liked, so going into this movie with its shooting style wasn't going to win me over.Except it did. It was compellin, well acted and I could see myself following a very similar path to the main characters.A flick through the reviews you can see people love or hate it. This is surely down to the handicam shooting. I would like to have seen it as a traditional shooting style.Either way, this is definitely worth a watch .
... View MoreChronicle takes the found footage technique & uses it beautifully in the teenage melodrama/superhero worlds, opening with a heart-wrenching moment between the main character & his dad banging on his door. Through found sudden superpowers, we have some blatant parallels to puberty that work, & the teenage philosophizing is great for the characters. The effects are crisp, & the final battle is full of pathos & excitement. Trank's later meltdown is a shame would so love to get more from this universe.
... View MoreBack in 2012, a year with all sorts of crazy blockbusters including Skyfall, Avengers Assemble, The Hunger Games, The Dark Knight Rises, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Amazing Spider-Man (wowzerz, and the list goes on ), this particular film came around from beneath people's noses with all kinds of shaky cam blazing and became somewhat of a hit. A lot of great films came out in that year, much more than we've been graced with in 2016, and I never managed to watch Chronicle until today, a thriller that mildly impressed a good portion of movie watchers. I, too, was mildly impressed.It follows the story of three high school students, Andrew Detmer, Matt Garetty and Steve Montgomery in Seattle who gain telekinetic superpowers after exploring a mysterious underground cave on a night out. The three something-teens are brought together into an unlikely friendship, linking the shy and odd Andrew with the popular and outgoing Steve as they have unimaginable fun with their ridiculous abilities. However, when Andrew embraces his dark side with his powers, things start to spiral out of control and their friendship is tested (to the max).It all starts when Andrew (the main character of the movie) begins filming everything in his life with his camera, and he is dragged into a party that eventually leads to the excitable exploration of said mysterious underground cave where weird shizzle happens and they come out being able to control the movement of objects without touching them – including, eventually, themselves, in a sense, as they fly around the joint. The problem is with the plot is, in the first half-an-hour or so, everything is a bit slow, and a bit boring. I'm not gonna lie, I didn't think the film was going to be that great when Andrew was slowly perving on cheer girls and walking around a bit. Even so, we get to learn more about Andrew, Matt and Steve as the film goes through this slow progression, and so although enjoyment factor is greatly crappified, the character development is given good time to grow.Chronicle's gradual and frankly boring progression, however, is followed by a (mostly) thrilling and fast-paced hour or so of sinister and bloody friendship tests, as the film introduces itself to a much higher entertainment medium. Things go from fun and goofy to dark and edgy ( THE EDGE IS FINE) in the flick of a switch around the half- hour mark when Andrew uses his powers to hospitalize some bloke in a truck.With it's shaky camera-work and dark undertones, Chronicle, I'd say, is a pretty cool film. Its found footage cinematography and its use of interesting premise help it to reach 'pretty cool' heights, along with its silent score and anti-protagonist Andrew. I'd call him that because he's a douche, but he's the guy who gets the most screen- time (like a protagonist) and I felt sorry for him because he sort of became a douche because of his long suffering at school and at home.Something that is great about Chronicle is that it is completely honest, and there are no smoothed edges by the giant sandpaper in L.A; the fact it is means that the characters' actions can be easily relatable, and the dialogue, school bullying and action sequences can be fittingly brutal — which in turn means the film has the power to control your emotions as the viewer, because everything you see you can believe. However, the trolling by the teenage trio when they first obtain their powers is fun, but doesn't utilize that aforementioned ability to give you these emotions, because unfortunately I wasn't pushed to hysterics. There is also a slightly tacked on romance (of sorts) between Matt and some girl, which I didn't care much about, and there is a slightly lacklustre ending.Even so, the more sinister and violent side of the film is immense, as the bloody climax is thrilling, and not at all overblown like one of Marvel's shiny-fests. I got over the fact that it got a bit ridiculous towards the end, because it was more intense than anything I've seen in a while, and the cool factor was pushed to awesome with all the super-charged explosions and telekinetic terrorism. Andrew changed from a weird kid in some corner to a demi- god from the timid start to the explosive finish, and that progression saw the incredible climax it needed. The other two of the three super-powered mates also saw fantastic character development through the run-time, as Micheal B. Jordan and the bunch put across believable and genuine performances, and were helped by a brutally honest script (get that sandpaper away from me, Zak Snyder!).Chronicle is also a film that gets you thinking. It's not just a few teenagers flying around. The dark side's vicious admission makes you question the human soul and underlines how easy it is for someone to turn on their conscience, whilst also reminding you of the power of friendship and all dat. I apologize for the rubbishy analytical turn this review took. Let's go back to basics.Chronicle isn't perfect, but it manages to push its flaws aside. It totally redeems itself with its brilliantly intense atmosphere, relatable characters and brutal realism on show, all delivered through unique camera-work and nailed down with a solid premise.
... View MoreChronicle tells the story of three friends who upon attending a party fall upon a mysterious rock that grants them superpowers. Although it was outstanding for a superhero movie and certainly took risks that the M.C.U. as well as Fox's X-Men universes would dare to try, as a stand alone film its predictable as can be. But it was good.Chronicle was good because of its fleshed out characters that all felt relatable. And to add on to the fact that the main trio in the film are teenagers it feels all the more relatable through how they react to the events in the film. And although the promotional material might show this movies plot being simply about superpowers it surprisingly has an emotionally gripping though predictable main plot about the main character that makes this movie all the more riveting.The main complaints I have with this movie is how the effects did not look convincing. This problem is pretty visibly due to the films budget. Thankfully since the movie was done on a smaller scale this problem did not take me out of the movie. There were also some character decision's that did not make the most since, but this movie was enjoyable as well as unique.In conclusion Chronicle was good, I thought. I'm glad that it tried something new, and I'm even happier that the movie was able to grip me in way I did not think a superhero movie could. This is without a doubt one of my favorite films of 2012, and will probably be making my list. And I'm giving this one a 7/10.
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