“You put a guy in the hospital. How do you feel about that?”
There’s a lot of material outside the frame I could write about. Director Josh Trank went from this to a very public implosion on Fant4stic to being allowed to make an even worse film. This is the first produced script by Max Landis, perhaps the 2nd most deserving prick to get #MeToo-ed. He was banned from the set during production, but it’s easy to see traces of his personality in the film. (Hardly enough to hurt the film, it’s just enough to support Trank’s rather bleak tone.)
This was the breakout of Dane DeHaan, whose interesting persona is best suited to supporting character work with what should be a rare lead part when it fits, His decade was up-and-down while Hollywood tried to make a leading man out of him. Meanwhile, 3rd billed Michael B. Jordan made this coming off of Friday Night Lights and one year before first working with director Ryan Coogler on Fruitvale Station. This performance is a sign of the charismatic leading roles he would later take.
A lot of interesting angles, but I’m more enthralled by what happened when they all come together at the start of their careers, to make a superhero film when the MCU was just warming up, done found footage style when the craze was at its peak, on a budget of $12 million dollars. The end result plays like what it seemed M. Night Shyamalan was going to do right before he instead gave us Glass. The gee whiz pleasure of the nearly constant effects scenes hold up, and with each viewing – this is my 4th – I get more out of the dark character stories happening around the edges. I also notice more of the digital effects work, but it’s still 75% great and I’m happy to throw in the rest. What doesn’t hold up so well is the found footage angle, which seems more problematic the more they try to explain things and use other devices.
In the over-saturated superhero landscape, Chronicle stands out even more as an original look at what happens when people are gifted great powers which only magnifies their personal problems.
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