Cigarette Burns: Chronicle

So unless you've been living under a rock (A social style which I am admittedly tempted to undertake sometimes) you will know that it was Valentines day yesterday - or as I like to call it, Singles Awareness Day. Now you're probably thinking - ah, Lewis is notoriously good with the ladies, he obviously went to the cinema with a bunch of hot chicks and is now going to rub that fact in our faces in the shape of a movie review - but no.


Lewis didn't go to the cinema with a bunch of hot chicks yesterday, instead he went with three dudes - Brownbear, C*nt Destroyer, and Tom. They went clothes shopping, drank Shakeaway, gossiped, and eyed up hot boys. There, I said it.


The film we went to see - Chronicle - is one that Brownbear showed me the trailer for a good month ago, a trailer to which we both chimed 'That looks awesome'. Following the story line of troubled boy meets superpowers meets craziness, the film doesn't go into completely uncharted territory with its ideas and narrative - but it maintains the slightly undesirable tag of a film with no definable genre.

Mixing up an impressive array of different styles, first-time film director Josh Trank lines up a cast of relative unknowns and throws them into an idea best described as Cloverfield-meets-Misfits, quickly diving from happy-go-lucky teenagers with superpowers story line to a much darker, challenging backdrop.

The film is told through the age-old technique of found footage, beginning with the protagonist, Andrew (Dane DeHaan) buying an old camera to try and stop his father from abusing him, and changing in different ways. The way the story is shown develops throughout the film in believable ways that will have you smirking from ear-to-ear in damn cleverness.

Apart from a small number of continuity errors that superpower films tend to be riddled with, I do have one gripe with the film - the writing. Aside from the flying around in the sky and the supernatural antics, the film attempts to stick to a realistic view of what would happen if generic supernatural incident #321 actually happened, and so accordingly, the film is a mix of jump-cuts through dull dialogue, and omg lol we r high schooler lingo. Later on in the film however, our characters develop and have to confront some pretty out-there stuff, and so the scriptwriters jump back to the film school dreams of epic monologues and academic references, in a way that is so unnatural that you'd think they took a University to the brain instead of an Alien-Meteorite-Thing.

Aside from that, the film is an innovative and compelling feat from a team of fresh creators. Its blend of comic book story, interesting moral dilemmas, fresh narrative and downright jaw-dropping array of special effects will make any bro-date that bit more awesome.

Lewis: 8
Brownbear: 8
Tom: 7
C*nt Destroyer/Ross: 7/8

Favourite Line: "I COULD CRUSH YOU."
That delivery. Just. Yes.


- Lewis