#chroncile

I nearly bought this, I nearly did...that would have been more of a waste than the £3.49 iTunes requested for the strangely non-HD version of this intriguing but fundamentally flawed movie.

As an idea, it is excellent.  It takes three young guys, two happen', one the local freak, isn't every US coming of age film like this?  The movie throws them together as they develop superhero powers after finding some flashy glowing thing down a hole (we never discover what this is about, perhaps Chronicle 2 will tell us).  It's all filmed in shake vision, which worked for Blair Witch and Cloverfield, but its overuse is now leading the effect to become a little tiresome.  Whilst it is not made clear that the film is found footage, the lead is never without his camera and constantly films his and his friends exploits, in some respects it is clever, but in the same way that there are discussions about how the camera is a barrier between the Dehan's character and the other cast members, so to it seems a barrier between the movie go'er and a full overview of the action and what is going on.

The film develops quite slowly, but the period where powers developed is lost a little.  There is little humour or indeed action as each character slowly finds they can move objects or fly and so forth.  It is interesting also that all the characters seem to have the same type and function of powers, albeit at different levels and stages.  Whilst I hate needless signposting in movies, some better handling of this area of the script or direction would have perhaps made the movie far more creditable and interesting.

Josh Trank directs, the lead Dane Dehan is creditable as are his co-stars, Alex Russell and Michael Jordan.  As said above the movie just doesn't quite delve enough.  There are several examples of issues which would motivate the audience to link with the characters, but these simply aren't explored properly, for example the development of the powers, the seriously dysfunctional relationship between Dehan and his father (which could have been developed so much more), and the relationship between the characters themselves, you know they have growing attachments to each other but as a viewer you don't seem to invest - or I didn't at least.

Chronicle - Trailer