Chronicle from director Josh Trank is a “found footage” movie that explores what would happen if a ‘normal’ person was given superpowers.

Andrew (Dane DeHaan) is a shy and troubled youth with a sick mother and an abusive father.  He decides to document his life by recording video – that’s how the movie starts.  Through the footage that Andrew records, we encounter the other two main characters in the story – Andrew’s cousin Matt (Alex Russell), who is Andrew’s only friend, and Steve (Michael Jordan) who is running for President at their high school.

The three encounter a mysterious force that grants them telekinetic powers.  The remainder of the movie shows us what they do with these powers – told mostly from the point of view of Andrew’s camera.  If a ‘normal’ person is given telekinetic powers, would that person use it to do goody-goody stuff?  No, they wouldn’t – and that’s what Trank’s take on the subject matter is, which results in an engaging and very well done movie, that does turn quite dark as it progresses.

Coming in at less than 90 minutes, Chronicle actually covers a lot of ground (origin and a whole story arc for the characters), and builds up really well.  It’s well written (screenplay by Max Landis, who is John Landis’s son) and the acting is very good.

The standout performance for me was from Dane DeHaan as Andrew, who was really believable in the role.  Towards the end, the movie reminded me of Akira, though the two are not related, Andrew’s character does have shades of Tetsuo from that movie.

The visual effects are very well done – they blend in very well with the supposedly ‘filmed’ footage.

The film takes a lot of artistic license with the “found footage” aspect (I don’t suppose the filmmakers have officially claimed it as a “found footage” movie, have they?).

Early on I suppose it could pass off as footage that was ‘found’ as is, but later on it freely breaks from that mould, since we’re shown footage from more than one camera.  Therefore, what is shown in the movie cannot possibly be found footage, as anyone who’s edited video would tell you.  If what we’re shown is true, much of the film is supposed to be shot with a Canon HD camera but I doubt that it would produce shallow depth-of-field effects like what we see.

In reality the movie was shot with Arri Alexa cameras (so yes, it was shot digitally) with Cooke S4 and Angenieux Optimo Lenses (technical info courtesy IMDb).

Of course, complaining about the video aspect not being plausible, in a movie about people who get telekinetic powers is needless nitpicking, I realise (see Bellisario’s Maxim)!  So it’s best not to think too much about that and simply enjoy it as a unique storytelling device employed by director Trank.

Overall a very nicely done movie.  Definitely worth watching and Josh Trank is a name to keep in mind!

Rating: 8/10

Note: I saw this at Prasad’s, entered the hall in time to see the trailer of This Means War (first time I’m hearing of this movie – it’s directed by McG).  My friend informed me that I missed the trailer they showed before that – the one for Prometheus!  Granted, it’s the same one I’ve already seen dozens of times, but it would have been awesome to see it on a big screen.

Another Note: Praise to whoever decided to release this movie in India, the same praise as I would attribute to the people who released Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive in India.  Drive was also shot (Newton Thomas Sigel) digitally, with Arri Alexa cameras.  Apart from the lenses mentioned above, the IMDb page lists Zeiss Master Prime Lenses as being used.

Underworld: Awakening is the fourth movie in the Underworld series of movies, which is set in a world where vampires and werewolves (here called lycans) exist and are feuding races.  The first two movies featured Kate Beckinsale as the vampire Selene, who hunts lycans, but falls in love with Michael, a lycan.  It’s been a while since I saw those two movies, so to be honest, I don’t remember more details about them.  Evolution, though, I remember had quite a bit of the icky creature stuff, and dealt with vampire-lycan hybrids and the sort.  The action was good too.  Along the way, the heroine found out that the vampire elders were not so honourable as they seemed to be.

I didn’t see the third movie, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, but that is a prequel, so not necessary to watch in order to understand the fourth movie.

Underworld: Awakening opens with humans conducting a ‘purge’ – eradicating both vampires and lycans, who they believe to be infected.  Michael and Selene are running from the humans when an explosion happens.  Selene wakes up in a lab (after 12 years, as we later find out) and escapes from there.  It’s later revealed that this is Antigen Labs, and Dr Jacob Lane (Stephen Rea), one of the people behind the purge, is the one who’s been doing experiments on Selene and another subject.  This other subject turns out to be Selene’s daughter, who is very powerful and the lycans are after her for some reason.

The movie looks good – slick and a cold blue tone throughout.  The action scenes were well done.  Although, like the first two movies, I doubt I’d remember any of it after some time.  It was entertaining while it lasted though, and the acting was decent.  Kate Beckinsale did well in her role.  It’s directed by the Swedish Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein and there are a bunch of writers credited (including a story credit for Len Wiseman who directed the first two movies).

This movie reminded me of the Resident Evil movies, and in fact, the scene where Selene escapes from Antigen Labs was very much like the siege on Umbrella Corporation by the Alice clones from the beginning of Resident Evil: Afterlife.  The vampire and lycan mythology is nearly jettisoned here and this is a more traditional action movie.  For some reason I also got reminded of the Spierig Bros’ Daybreakers while watching this.  Underworld: Awakening plays things seriously, so I guess it wasn’t as much brainless fun as a later Resident Evil movie.

This movie is shot in 3D (as opposed to being post-converted), and I thought the 3D effect was quite good.  I saw this in a theatre with good 3D system, so no complaints about the glasses or about the screen being too dark.

I read that this was the first 3D movie to be shot on RED EPIC cameras, and that the upcoming Resident Evil: Retribution is also shot that way.

Overall, I’d say this movie gets points for the good action scenes and Kate Beckinsale’s acting, but other than that, I thought it was a decent movie at best.

Rating: 7/10