Here is a little, short YouTube video:
Kind of funny. Kind of dark. Cheap, but in a necessary kind of way. It’s of little surprise that the director of that video went on to direct the year’s first and only (or not) superhero film: “Chronicle.” Like the light saber video above, the general premise is that young people obtain superpowers by way of ‘nobody-cares,’ and the end result demonstrates that young people—if not all people—can be impulsive, reckless, vain and destructive. With barely articulate/realistic dialogue (“DUUUUDE!”), inventive cinematography and enough moral ambiguity to fill the Superdome, “Chronicle”—a movie whose total production costs topped out around Hugh Jackman’s fee-per-film—stirred the regrettable realization that I blew way too much money over the years on 5 separate X-Men movies.
Like any standard superhero film, a handful of teenagers develop their unusual powers and immediate test them out, pushing one another as if playing with their dad’s gun—or, in my personal history, a grandfather’s katana. Expectantly, the former-high school prey, Andrew, finds the most meaning in his new begotten powers and becomes the vengeance-seeking antagonist. And so in the same vein as Magneto, Michael Corleone, the Wicked Witch of the West and any other proper villain, the audience must ask itself: when is revenge justified and when is too far?
As much as any fantastical element of the X-Men character Magneto, the audience had to believe that he’d still harbor resentment from his time in a WWII concentration camp. “Chronicle,” though, showcases something far more terrifying to modern audiences, a picked-on student rampaging against his classmates. Justified or not (moral answer: it’s not), Andrew’s anger, loneliness and desperation seem natural enough to attempt citywide destruction. Also, the angst is helped along by way of living in Seattle.
So he's going to play a young Leonardo Dicaprio at some point, right?
Counter-balancing Andrew, are two socially successful students: Matt and Steve. Presenting one of the thousands of paradoxes in actual high school life, Matt and Steve were admittedly not friends with Andrew in their pre-super power lives, yet they aren’t necessarily bad people for it. At any school (or workplace) with more than 150 people, acquaintances will form and never be anything more. By the same psychological inevitability, we characterize people we don’t know into stereotypes or caricatures but regard our friends and ourselves as unique and complex individuals. Everybody being friends with everybody is an unfair and impossible expectation.
While “Chronicle,” repeatedly strengthens the depths of Andrew’s characterization, not so much as a single line is tossed in to justify the actions of Andrew’s numerous tormentors, including drug dealers, pretty people and a drunk, abusive father. The high school “weirdo” is a real person, but apparently that distinction doesn’t cut both ways. An unusually strong emotional core is built up for Andrew, but the efforts of empathy are slightly undercut by the hypocrisy. Indeed, nerds are people, too. But in real life so are bullies. And so are cheerleaders, jocks, singers, drunks, housewives, convenience store clerks, and policemen.
Now the film probably had to follow Andrew, as his rise, fall, rise and fall (again) is the most dynamic of the characters. His life started out the worst and so escaping into the unimaginable was easiest for him. Conversely, Matt and Steve had lived their lives as perennial winners to the point that winning the jackpot of superpowers was barely more than another checkmark on their to-do lists. Matt and Steve need no further attention, praise or added promises of success in life and so they can use their new advantage in the most restrained and appropriate ways.
Unlike comic book movies, “Chronicle” gives minimum background to the supernatural origins but the ending teases with a half-baked sequel in mind. Rather than alien technology (ala “Animorphs”), I think there is more narrative and symbolic evidence to say The Whatever Device was government-run. Basically then, the movie becomes an allegory for the government giving away financial aid to high school students.
Wait. What?
Coming from an occasionally spiteful, generally snide, quasi-ironic, sub-excellent student, the way in which millions of dollars worth of high education is given away makes little sense. The best performing students, in academics or athletics or in their community service are already on a good path and only use their financial gifts to either fill coffers or jump start coffers that will be packed in a few years anyway. However, as I previously argued, “Chronicle” is entirely about the previously successful boys copping with new powers much better than the previously denigrated boy. In that way, the movie is showing that poor and/or lonely people should not receive outside help because they’re likely to try to use said powers to help their loved ones, seek revenge, bother the police and otherwise reek havoc.
I, of course, disagree with such a thesis and harbor a certain, specific sympathy for Andrew. In what would barely crack the Top 30 Most Embarrassing Moments of my high school career, I—like Andrew in the movie—filmed fellow 12th grade students like some kind of pimple-faced paparazzi, in a poorly-conceived ambition to wow them all with a revolutionary documentary. Few social designations stick and sting the 21st Century American like “creeper.” Trumping that, though, would be being called “racist.”
Speaking of which, the film commits one of the most tired cliches in regards to the order characters die. I complained of such months ago while watching “X-Men: First Class” and so felt the same laziness in “Chronicle” shan’t escape notice.
Racist slights aside, “Chronicle” is still a refreshing recovery from January’s numerous cinematic disappointments. In fact, it deserves more kudos than even that. “Chronicle” is the most stylized high school movie since “Brick” and the most thoughtful superhero film since “The Dark Knight” and the overall best young-people-with-real-superpowers film since I can remember. And to get all that entertainment with a four-dollar matinee is one of the best buys I've made in a while. Dude, bro, totally.
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