Chronicle (2012)
Directed by Josh Trank
No · Ultra Based
How we score movies →Consciousness Markers
Michael B. Jordan is cast in a lead role as a fully developed character, but his casting is incidental to the narrative and carries no thematic significance regarding representation or identity.
Andrew's family financial struggles provide atmospheric backdrop to his character, but the film offers no systemic critique of capitalism or inequality.
Ashley Hinshaw appears as a female character but occupies a peripheral role in a male-dominated narrative with no feminist consciousness evident.
No LGBTQ+ themes, characters, or subtext are present in the film.
While the cast includes a Black actor in a lead role, the film demonstrates no engagement with racial themes or identity.
No environmental themes or climate-related messaging appears in the film.
No body-related themes or messaging regarding body positivity or body diversity.
No representation of or engagement with neurodivergence or mental health as a thematic concern.
The film is contemporary fiction with no historical elements or revisionist historical content.
The narrative is character-driven and psychological, containing no preachy messaging or lectures about social issues.
Synopsis
Three high school students make an incredible discovery, leading to their developing uncanny powers beyond their understanding. As they learn to control their abilities and use them to their advantage, their lives start to spin out of control, and their darker sides begin to take over.
Why it received this score
Chronicle arrives as a genre exercise almost entirely unconcerned with the cultural anxieties that would come to define cinema in the subsequent decade. The film follows three high school students who develop telekinetic powers and watch as their lives splinter under the weight of newfound capability. Director Josh Trank constructs a found-footage narrative that treats its premise with the seriousness of a physics problem rather than a statement about anything in particular. The casting of Michael B. Jordan alongside Dane DeHaan and Alex Russell reflects a casual diversity that predates the contemporary discourse around representation. His character, Steve, is competent and sympathetic, but the film has no investment in interrogating identity, power structures, or the social dimensions of his presence. The narrative framework focuses exclusively on the psychological and moral deterioration of its protagonists, a descent into chaos motivated by ego and resentment rather than any systemic critique. There are whispers of class commentary in Andrew's family struggles, yet these exist as atmospheric detail, a justification for his anger rather than an indictment of inequality. The film remains a thriller about corruption and control, concerned with depicting the mechanics of power rather than examining who holds it or why. It is a work of its moment, which is to say a work before that moment arrived.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Critic Reviews
“If the characters weren't so well drawn, if the effects weren't so convincing, and if the upshot weren't so ghastly, the moral component wouldn't carry any weight. But Trank tells his tale with an emotional and visual crispness that gives the superhero genre its best crack at naturalism so far.”
“The most original and excitingly executed wow-factor-meets-handheld-video feature since "Blair Witch" itself. It's also a movie that rebuilds the power of special effects from the ground up. ”
“John Trank's Chronicle grows into an uncommonly entertaining movie that involves elements of a superhero origin story, a science-fiction fantasy and a drama about a disturbed teenager.”
“With great power comes the responsibility to make a decent movie, but the mysterious force running through Chronicle is the power to supersuck.”