Teenagers From Outerspace
This is the kind of film that I would normally run from: teenagers, superpowers, hormones gone wild, etc. Where’s the door? But for some reason Chronicle piqued my curiosity. Chronicle is directed by first-time director, Josh Trank and written by Max Landis (John Landis’ son) on a shoe-string budget (for a modern film), $15 million. The film format appears to be “found footage.” Haven’t seen that one before, have you?
Similar to Heroes, the plot involves teenagers who suddenly discover that they have superpowers. As such, they play pranks on hapless bystanders…of course something goes terribly wrong. It has all the makings of a bad scifi teen dream.
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| Dane DeHaan |
Fortunately Chronicle appears to be different than an average teeny-bopper supernatural flick. If the end of the trailer is any indication, the “chronicle” tells the story from backwards to front, similar to Memento–plus +1. There’s no sweeping over-dramatic music, nor does there appear to be a sappy love story–plus+2. It’s reminiscent of Cloverfield–plus +3. Unfortunately there were a few scenes reminiscent of I Know What You Did Last Summer–minus -1.
In addition to Cloverfield, it reminds me of another underrated scifi film, Monsters. Hopefully Chronicle is more like Cloverfield and Monsters, and less like Paranormal Activity. This one could go either way. Chronicle releases on February 3rd. Check out the trailer.
This looks awesome! I heard of it but never saw the trailer till now! Thanks for posting about this!
(also anything like Memento gets +1 in my books too!)
i just saw this last night. i think the movie seems like a bold choice. i hope it turns out to be good!
Looks so nice, I have to watch it!
I'm hesitant, but it has my interest. And Monsters was brilliant!
This actually looks pretty interesting.
That was a kick ass trailer!
I like the idea of this, but why does it always have to be teen boys. I mean The Craft was awesome, so why couldn't they do teen girls. Girls and women get the shaft when it comes to superpowers. We end up being hero support, girlfriends, victims and other useless characters.
I like the idea, but find the fact that $15 is a small movie these days jaw dropping. I know it's like I just got thawed from Victorian times.
I had seen the trailer some time in the last couple of months. I figured I would watch the movie at some point, but it's definitely not a "go to the theater" movie for me. (Then again, few movies are these days.)