AI, Chronicle

First of all I should say that Chronicle is a bizarrely unmemorable title. Nobody I know can remember what it's called. They should have called it KRONIK-L; you’d probably remember that. A typical discussion of the film would go like this: 'Have you seen that movie about those boys that get superpowers from a hole? Ah what's it called?' 'I don't know but it looks shit.' 'Actually, I've heard it's good'. Well, it's alright. It’s about three teenage kids who get superpowers and use them to do teenage kid stuff opposed to becoming superheroes, and it’s a found footage movie which means what you’re seeing on screen is filmed by the main characters. There was a lot to like and dislike in Chronicle, most of it coming from the found footage style; which makes the film way more interesting and entertaining than it should be, though occasionally you go ‘oh come on!’ when yet another character decides to film everything, pretty much because it says so in the script. There was a great bit, when they’re flying and they drop the camera, and you fear not for the characters but for the camera, through which you’ve seen the whole movie so far. There is a cool gimmick where the main character uses telekinesis to float the camera through the air, which makes some interesting shots that would normally seem out of place, and frees the filmmakers from the constraints of found footage.There are many problems though; under-developed characters, loose ends left hanging everywhere and general lazy writing. Perhaps more problematic though is the lack of a soundtrack; because of the found footage thing, all the music is diegetic (the only music comes from on-screen sources). This is no Rear Window though, it only serves to make the action sequences seem unfinished and the whole thing oddly emotionless, only to feeling like a movie in one ‘suiting up’ scene where Ziggy Stardust plays, presumably through the protagonists headphones. You have to admire the ambition for messing around with the superhero genre as much as it does, but it falls flat in so many areas, though it’s worth a watch.

AI was another mixed bag. Like Pinocchio, it’s about a robot who wants to become a real boy so his mother will love him. It was famously a Stanley Kubrick film before he had problems finishing it what with being dead and everything, so Stephen Spielberg took over. Jude Law was fantastic as was Haley Joel Osment, especially when he was being creepy at the beginning, before his mother ‘imprinted’ on him. There was a lot to like, the middle section was cool, and the Blade Runner style future was fantastic to look at. The scenes with David and his mother at the beginning and end of the film, however were just too cringey for me, and I like Spielberg sentimentality. The dialogue is often like an early Disney film, but without the barrier of being animated I find it so embarrassing, especially the word ‘mommy’ in an American accent. There’s also a warmhearted voiceover that explains everything that’s going on, which felt heavy-handed.