Monday 6 February 2012

Chronicle

I guess we have had way too many movies now which have been shot – in layman terms – using a normal recording camera. The kind of stuff which gives you the effect of it having been recorded by someone like you and me. I guess Josh Trank – yet another director who is moving from a single TV series to mainstream cinema – doesn’t quite agree with me that it is passé. From the looks of it (read – scores on imdb) people are lapping it up as it is being served. Chronicle is currently scoring nearly 8 on 10 on the imdb rankings. Not on my scale though. Don’t get me wrong. I think don’t think it is a bad movie at all. Just not good enough to come close to 8 that’s all.
Whats different about those video cam recorded movies from Chronicle is a slightly different story. Most of the stuff that I have seen are either about the end of the world or some random ghost story which went on to make zillions in the BO. Yawn. Not so much the case here though.

I would hate to be Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan). Why would anyone want to be Andy. How many people get ragged in their senior year by all and sundry? And if that is not sufficient, get beaten up by Sr. Detmer (Michael Kelly) every nite for any reason whatsoever. Like because your door is locked. Matt Garetty (Alex Russell) is the only friend of sorts that Andy has. But Matt doesn’t qualify since he is Andy’s cousin and happens to be a senior as well. To make matters worse – Andy’s mother is terminally ill and is on constant medication which the family can barely afford. Did I mention that Andy has this fetish of shooting (on camera) everything that he sees? There is a video cam constantly between Andy and the rest of the world. That’s the chronicle that he is making – arbit no? It gets more arbit when a chance encounter with a UFO without the F so UO in a cave during a party gets Andy, Matt and front runner for class president – Steve Montgomery (Michael B Jordan) special powers of telekinesis which eventually gets Andy completely ballistic.

The message that Josh Trank has tried to give through the movie is that age old adage which goes something like this – Power Corrupts. And Absolute Power corrupts Absolutely. The performances are quite good actually. Dane DeHaan looks like the nerdy fellow who has something sinister inside him – quite errie actually. Alex Russell and the wanna B Jersey #23 are also pretty decent in their performances. For a first timer, Trank also makes the cut. So there is a future for a lot of people involved with this movie in Hollywood. Just bored with the Video Cam look and a story that kind of goes haywire towards the end. 6 on 10 I say.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2464325145/

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