MOVIES IN REVIEW: CHRONICLE
Looking back over the great foundational legends of our times, probably none is responsible for more pain and devastation than Spiderman. From that one story comes the notion that all young geeks are noble, saintly figures whom if they could just not get picked on for two seconds, would dedicate their lives to helping others without any thought of reward.
From the roots of this legend, society in the past 20 years has bought into the idea that geeks can be trusted with power; that having known oppression, they will use what resources we can place in their hands for good. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, and time will only tell what horrors will yet unfold in the geek era .
Chronicle thus is an incredibly important film with a very valuable lesson for the young: that geeks are resentment fueled balls of hate, who know only two emotions: self-pity and rage. And if you give them a chance to put away the self-pity for five seconds, rage will immediately fill the void. And if they happen to have superpowers at that point, we’re all in trouble.
The film clearly is a metaphor for the tech age; a firm rebuttal of Spiderman as Rio Bravo rebutted High Noon, and Silent Running answered 2001. We would all do well to heed its warning and work as a society to begin removing geeks from positions of power and wealth as soon as possible, replacing them with guys with nice hair and cool cars who aren’t aching to get even with all the girls who wouldn’t hang out with them in high school.
Powerful and important message aside, Chronicle is a perfectly enjoyable little sci-fi film, that works its premise on a very human level, always making the film about the three kids rather than about the powers. The film feels like the first third of some giant Marvel film production - the part where normal people gradually awaken to the powers, before those films become just a bunch of CGI creatures throwing things at each other. And it is short enough that it’s able to stretch that part of the story out to just under 90 minutes, the running time of the film. Some may be upset that they didn’t get more, that the film cuts out just as it seemed to be warming up. I say, no, that’s exactly perfect. You stopped the film just before it was about to get incredibly tedious and let us leave with good feelings.
I should also note that of all my neuroses the one full blown phobia I suffer from is a fear of heights, and this film had a couple sequences set in the clouds that had me gasping and hiding my face in my hands. I’m not sure if that’s because they were exceptionally well done or I’m just an exceptional coward, but it’s at least 50/50 that those scenes were good.
The only real minus for me: this is another found footage movie and it really is time to put this whole thing to a rest. It adds nothing here and to service the premise that this is all just found footage - not produced filmmaking - they are forced to do some incredible gymnastics; introduce other characters who are also carrying around video cameras, demonstrate that other people are waving their cameras around. And all that just makes you more aware of how the found footage thing really doesn’t add up. The basic problem is that if the events of the film get really exciting or scary, the idea that the hero is still holding onto a camera catching them becomes ridiculous. I suppose the notion is you want to see the events through the hero’s eyes. But in this film as in others, it becomes not just the footage found in one camera in its in camera edit state, but a bunch of stuff spliced together from other sources - like the other character mentioned above. So if there is someone else at work gathering the videos and editing them…what exactly does the found footage device give us? If a director feels that the only way he can achieve real intimacy with his characters is by showing the movie through their shaky camera lens, then he needs to get a refund on his film school degree and spend some time directing community theater.
The Rushfield Babylon Recommendation: Slight but enjoyable. Six stars out of ten
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