Chronicle Review

Director: Josh Trank

Cast: Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, Michael B Jordan, Ashley Hinshaw

Running time: 83 minutes

Certificate: 12A

Synopsis: Three high school friends gain superpowers after making an incredible discovery. Soon, though, they find their lives spinning out of control and their bond tested as they embrace their darker sides.

Sometimes you wonder how something like this hasn’t been made before, with the recent technology shifting in the film industry and turning it upside down, CHRONICLE joins the re-moulding with great power and responsibility plus it flips the superhero genre, shakes it ferociously and inquires what would you do if your role models weren’t philosophical Uncle Ben or the honourable Jonathan and Martha Kent.

CHRONICLE is the big screen début for director and writer Josh Trank, who co-wrote with another first-timer on the big stage but with film in his blood, Max Landis, the son of legendary director and visionary John Landis.

Set in Seattle, it focuses foremost on Andrew Detmar (Dane DeHaan), a somewhat disturbed high school kid with an abusive father and an ill, bed-bound, mother who is unable to help her son as his father’s drunken behaviour deteriorates. The film takes a found-footage style approach as Andrew decides to film everything going in his life. One night when filming a party in a barn, in the woods – Yes, in the middle of nowhere – Andrew’s cousin Matt (Alex Russell) and his popular high-school mate Steve (Michael B Jordan) head off to explore a hole in the ground, complete with cagey high-pitched frequencies. Drunk and wired, the trio slip down inside the mysterious opening and discover a glowing entity and before they know it, the electrics of the camera go haywire and we cut to black.

These boys weren’t exactly best friends before the incident but as we swiftly join them a few weeks later, they are obviously mates. From here – and without spoilers – we’re treated to their experiments with their new found ‘powers’.  Every trial has its comedic edge and make for memorable visuals, it also wants to seemingly softening proceedings with lads being just that. It could be argued that simple camera trickery is easy to apply and maybe it is but what makes CHRONICLE special, is it feels tangible and conceivable. It also helps the narrative, as it subtly seats that dark and lingering doubt in your mind of something lurking in the darkness. Whereas CLOVERFIELD went full out for monsters, terror and destruction, CHRONICLE starts in the comfort of a small town and spreads through them like an industrious disease.

It could be said that the film starts to occasionally show off and forgets its story but I feel this is a clever play by Landis and Trank to throw the audience off course for what it’s really saying. The film mentions the Greek word hubris, this relates to a loss of reality, it also wants to question rationality in extreme situations and how an ordinary person would cope if they had such authority and they all bring it to the big screen with unmistakable self-assurance for a début offering.

Overall, CHRONICLE is one hell of an absorbing and imaginative spectacle. So sit back, enjoy the ride and absorb those small moments mixed in effortlessly with massive set pieces for an incredible and extremely satisfying pay off.

CHRONICLE is released in UK Cinemas 1st February.