On This Episode: Kevin digs out the old Second Reel podcast and dusts it over, giving it a new coat of paint so it also works as a Fat Guy Five. After loathing the new film Chronicle, Kevin seeks out Steve “Gabe” Reeves, who also detested the film. Instead of finding diverse opinions on the subject (because, let’s face it… if you want to find Chronicle love, you can look at just about every other web site out there). Instead, they take the time to berate the film and rattle off the five reasons why it is turrible.
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/fatguysatthemovies/secondreel_episode20.mp3]
5. The Whole Found Footage Thing Is Getting Old
I know it’s an economic boon for Hollywood to produce (or cheaply acquire) films shot on a shoestring budget rather than hundreds of millions of dollars. And yes, The Blair Witch Project, [REC] and the Paranormal Activity movies were neat. But the format has severe limitations. From each film starting with a rumbling camera and someone saying the equivalent of “Is we on?” or “I’m going to shoot everything” to the capturing of inane, improvised dialogue, this format only works as a novelty. And considering that Chronicle had to remind the audience every five minutes that it was recording, as well as making wild plot excuses to justify it, the getting-old format got even more old.
4. Terrible Visual Effects
The superhero movie has become the gold standard for visual effects. Unfortunately, the people who made Chronicle didn’t get that memo. The found footage format is supposed to make things look more real, and that works in films like (the beginning of) District 9. However, Chronicle was full of terrible and fuzzy green screen work, harnesses under coats, goofy CGI Pringles and juggling that looked worse than Naomi Watts’ vaudeville shtick in King Kong.
3. Everyone in the Movie is an Asshole
From the clueless jock Steve to the bland Matt to the would-be psychopath in Andrew, every character in this movie was an asshole. And dealing with the burden of bullies at school and an abusive father doesn’t excuse any of this. Self-centered, narcissistic teenagers may be a common thing, but we don’t like to see movies about them.
2. Terrible Storytelling
For as much praise as Chronicle is getting for its “realistic” found footage presentation, the plot often makes no realistic sense. You have eighteen-year-old kids who don’t know the definition of “telekinesis” (which is as silly as them not knowing what a Tyrannosaurs rex is). There’s a smoking hot female blogger who (surprise, surprise!) also videotapes everything, stuck in the story for no other reason than to get reverse angles and pad the plot out. Let’s not get into the minutia of air pressure and the dangers of flying without an oxygen mask 20,000 feet in the air. Let’s talk about the floating camera at the funeral scene that not a damn person notices.
1. Wildly Unrealistic Characters
It’s not unrealistic to expect these characters to use their new-found powers for personal gain. It is unrealistic, however, for them to not once consider the pop culture ideas that come along with them. We were all teenage boys, and if we got telekinesis and the ability to fly, we’d at least mention Superman, or maybe The Force. We understand how the jock might not think of this, but the loner nerd who plays video games certainly would. These aren’t realistic eighteen-year-old boys. They’re poorly built, two-dimensional idiots that are out of place even in a comic book.
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Nah, completely disagree. With about every one of these points.
Also disagree.
Why do you say that this way of shooting movies is getting old? its less used than the standard way of shooting a movie so your saying movies in general are just getting old?
“Found footage” is relatively new, but it’s fiercely limiting as a storytelling medium. Here it was overdone and often made little sense. I’m not saying movies are getting old, just gimmicky ways to tell a story.
SOOOO OLD. I think the movie is 10x better without this. What is the friggin point?
Whoever wrote this article is rather closed minded. Chronicle was great. By the way, this web design is atrocious.
So differing opinions are closed minded? I thought we supported our points rather well. And feel free to redesign our site for us. Sorry we’re not hip enough for you.
This is why I don’t listen to fat guys.
Well, you’re really missing out, then.
Thanks for bringing such an intelligent argument to the table. I take back everything I said and bow to you as supreme ruler of everything.
Good. It’ll help you out in the long-run to know your place.
Your inability to grasp sarcasm is astounding.
Yet your inability to understand how a debate works is just as astounding.
oh and i thought you should know, he was following off of your sarcasm. Because sarcasm is the idiots defense.
did we watch the same movie?
oh wait.. you liked episode 1 nevermind
As a visual fx guy, I’ve got to say, I absolutely agree. Horrendous compositing work and animation. Glad someone noticed.
Thank you sir. I was astonished how horrible this film was after reading how everyone was raving about this film. Glad to see I’m not the only one.
Fuck dude, you spend the first 15 minutes nit-picking about found footage and then you follow by knocking the special effects. Get to some substance… or don’t you have any?
I think there’s plenty of substance in criticizing the shooting style and poor visual effects, especially for a film that is being heralded as a great use of the found footage style and visual effects. Plus, we talk a lot about other things beyond that.
Wow, it took you 15 minutes to read the paragraph about found footage?
I agree with some of the observations, but not with the sentiment. However, the fatness of the authors is distracting.
I completely agree with your article. I just got done seeing this with a bunch of other people and was thoroughly disgusted afterwards when they were talking about how “badass” it was; I thought it was terrible.
The film has a $12 million budget, unlike District 9’s $40 million. And the filmmakers are new to the biz, too. So please do your research before you open your fat mouths.
Well, my fat mouth says that a $12 million budget with no stars, limited effect shots and 2 years of technology improvements from the shooting of District 9 should have yielded a far better product. And that’s based on plenty of research. Money isn’t everything in Hollywood.
Budget is no excuse for bad story telling.
i feel like the main reason why i enjoyed this movie was because of the emotions that i felt. yes the cg was terrible especially the spider dissection scene but i personally felt happy to see Andrew finally find some friends through his new found power and towards the end i was hoping andrew would simply kill everything.
I don’t understand number 5. How are they unrealistic? Because they didn’t mention “Superman” in the movie? They did have a light saber at one point in the movie at the toy store. But I don’t think they have rights to mention “Superman” or “StarWars” in the movie
Sorry, I meant point number 1. (not 5)
My point on the whole Superman thing is that I would think that if anyone of any age got the power to fly, they would at least think about it as an actual super power. I understand why the film didn’t dwell on that, but it wasn’t even addressed. That’s what bothered me.
My boyfriend and I disagree on this whole found footage thing vehemently with he being the one to agree with you (it has severe limitations) and me thinking that what Chronicle did was both relevant and innovative in a successful way. We argued pretty much the whole way to the car, but I know he liked the movie 😛
5) Having the camera float around via Andrew was not only great for a new take on “found footage” but it was also justified to show how unique and proficient Andrew was with his powers. Sure the funeral bit seems silly; I can’t say that I remember it precisely, but seriously, this is one of those moments where you kinda just give the film a pass since nothing else is all to unrealistic here.
4) The only visual effects that I could really criticize was the flying (and not even the beautiful work these people did on the clouds or the airplane or the storm or tibet, etc;). Every time I saw them floating in midair, all I could think about was, “They look like they’re on a harness…
Aside from that, it’s hard to fault any of beautiful landscapes they did or the cool climax where Andrew and Matt go at it.
3) I don’t get this reference. Steve was as nice as they come. Maybe he was clueless but he was cool. The mother was cool and even Andrew (with his wily little attitude towards people) is starkly reminiscent of actual people in my life who have been in his situation. This about ties in with your #1 point about realism, but everyone seemed pretty on point. I wasn’t bullied to the extent that Andrew was in the film (though I was bullied. Didn’t I mention I had a boyfriend at the beginning of this? Homophobia follows you around in grade school like oxygen) but I have read several accounts of people who have gone through bullying like this on an everyday basis. The other blogger girl was pretty nice as well, sooo….
2) It seems like your grievances for bad story telling are a bit dull. The telekinesis bit was dumb, yeah, but it just goes against your whole point in #1 yet again that these kids don’t know anything about nerd fantasies. Sure we all saw Andrew messing with his camera, but he got it to tape his abusive father; not to be a filmmaker. Not once in the movie did we see a reference to any of the three main characters playing video games or enjoying movies. They did play with legos, but other than that, mainstream sci-fi stuff kinda never reared its head. It’s easy to assume that everyone knows about these things, but we forget that a really successful movie has a limited audience. If it makes $100 million in boxoffice and sells each ticket at $10, then they’ve only sold ten million tickets. Divide it by our populations and that’s less than a percent. Sure you could factor in home views, DVD sales and illegal downloads but it wouldn’t go further than that.
As for the rest of your points in this category, I think if you’re looking for something to hate in a film than you’re definitely going to find it.
1) and finally the unrealistic portions you are talking about. Oh… I already answered them in the others XD
In conclusion, I think that you should give this film another go in like a year and I think you’ll actually end up enjoying it a lot more than you did now. Happens to me sometimes and I quite like it that way :]
First, thanks for actually offering good discussion rather than flinging insults. You make some good points. I guess it’s not that Steve was an asshole (a bit of a generalization by me), but he was as shallow as they come.
Sorry to hear you were bullied in school. It’s a tough road for many people for many reasons in school. Most people I know have a bullying story, and with how much attention it’s getting now, I think that’s part of the reason they put that in the film. Though I think most people grow up and persevere from the bullying and don’t become a would-be sociopath like Andrew does.
But thanks again for the discussion points. I might re-watch it when it comes to DVD and Blu-ray.
Yeah, this review wasn’t worth reading. From a writer’s perceptive it is a well written film, despite ‘well written’ being subjective, try and imagine it as a screenplay. “Wildly Unrealistic Characters” is a bit of an exaggeration, “but the loner nerd who plays video games certainly would”, so stereotypical archetypes are what you deem realism? I don’t think you deserve to put your thoughts on the internet, or even onto others for that matter. I’m sure your lack of perception and inability to produce coherent statements will get your far in life. Have you ever considered that your obesity has caused you to project yourselves so aggressively? Perhaps your childhood experience and lack of social structure led you to your inability to grasp characters in fiction because you didn’t know these characters during adolescence? Also your website is poorly designed, so I’m guessing your not computer literate either, probably should work on that in between gym sessions.
Thanks for your brilliant analysis. I guess my 10 years of being a professional film critic is completely destroyed by the fact that I am overweight. You’re a genius.
You must be one hack of a writer.
I feel like the characters were the best part, and extremely realistic. Not every 18 year old boy knows words like telekinesis, and in that particular scene it seemed more like they were researching it to find out about themselves, not that they were clueless of the concept in the first place. Mentioning Superman/the Force/etc would have made it seem too pop culturey and this movie doesn’t really have too many pop culture references other than the Legos scene. You may call the characters assholes, but Steve turned out to be a heroic good friend. Matt was a bit pretentious but his heart was always in the right place. Andrew could be a bit of a dick, but this is classic behavior of an abused person. Not every boy in the world is a nerd, even loner ones beaten by their dad. Just because they don’t talk about comic books all the time mean they’re “wildly unrealistic.” And yes, the found footage angle is getting really old, but I think the filmmakers found some downright clever ways of dealing with it.
A crappy review written by a douchebag. There’s not enough of these on the internet!
Having a website doesn’t make you a film critic nor does the fact you’ve been watching movies for a ‘long time’. This nonsensical review should be enough to discredit you indefinitely.
Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but in many cases and in very much yours, it’s best to keep it to yourself as to not come across as idiot.
You got me. I’ll quit being a film critic because you didn’t like my review. Hold on while I let all the stations and web sites that carry my reviews know that grammar genius ZedTime said I should stop doing this.
No need to quit being a film critic as from the looks of things you never were one.
Your arrogance is exceeded only by your ignorance. And I mean that in the nicest of ways.
this movie is waaaaaaaay over rated in my opinion.
I went in with low expectations, but with the hope that it would impress me.
Instead i found it was a dull, and unrealistic film. Having said that, i have no problem with unrealistic films, but the whole point of “Found Footage” is to make it so realistic that the audience is totally enthralled in the experience; and if I’m being honest, the movie felt very confused, it didn’t know what it wanted to be and as a result the characters suffered and the story suffered.
because of a reasonably lame hollywood gimmick (the found footage thing), i don’t know what’s happened to cinematic story telling in the last 10 – 20 years, it’s lost it’s way, the amount of great films coming out are dwindling down, which i for one find extremely sad.
Anyway, I found myself rolling my eyes at the cheesy dialogue and actions of the characters far too many times to count, and the climax of the film was boring and majorly cliched, a deformed teen who can do nothing but yell and blow shit up…. great.
i especially agree with 1. very unconvincing characters. I’m no movie critic- but indeed this movie seriously and utterly blows and very hard. All the positive ratings make me furious
Agree on many points, BUT. I would not think about becoming a superhero too, not for a second. Assuming ANYONE would is not wise.
I think all the main characters were supposed to be gay-but-don’t-know-it-yet, but the most annoying thing about this film is the dialog. Much of the script seems to consist of one sissy or another repeatedly yelling “Matt! Matt! Matt!” or “Andrew! Andrew! Andrew”. I left the room while my wife watched it on Pay per view, but I couldn’t escape the dialog.
“Matt! Andrew! Matt! Andrew!…..” oh, STFU, please.
While searching for some sort of review in order to get a scope of or gain some assurance on something I felt made watching Chronicle an unejoyable movie experience, I happened to come across this post.
Not once did I develop a liking for any of the characters.
“3. Everyone in the Movie is an Asshole.”
I know I’m late, but just watched this on demand. To preface
my thoughts, I originally wanted to see the film in the theaters but caught wind of lukewarm reviews and decided against it. Then my 15-year old daughter tried watching it as we flew overseas. She told me it wasn’t good.
So I wasn’t in a big hurry to say the least. But I did decide to catch it On Demand to satisfy my curiosity (as a sci-fi and x-men lover).
What my daughter didn’t tell me is how God awful it was. As far as I am concerned, this is almost SyFy/Asylum bad. I was really surprised at how horrible and neverending this 80 minute film was. Even more shocking – the pretty good reviews among critics and fans alike. Maybe, just maybe watching it in the theater gave audiences a false sense of entertainment value. I dunno.
But I’d like to add two more reasons to your five.
6. The characters are idiots.
I’m sorry, but if I had telekinesis, I could come up with a number of successful, stealthy, and non-lethal ways to steal $50 (OR MORE) in order to save my mother’s life. And those ways would not involve at least a couple of hours wasted finding and putting on a stupid firefighter getup.
And…if I had the ability to fly and had previously used that
ability quite often – the last thing I would ask my girlfriend during a major, major emergency situation, is for the keys to her car.
And I literally could barely take the fact that dozens of police
officers on foot, in cars, and in the air, who are getting killed or maimed left and right, didn’t fire a single shot and kept approaching in waves like mindless video game minions. Over and over and over.
7. The acting is atrocious.
Sometimes badly written dialogue can still come across as
believable in the hands of a talented actor. I mean, it happens all of the time. But this was literally like a daytime soap opera with Degrassi-high characters and a Super 8 setting. And the over the top dramatics were relentless, literally 80 minutes of BAD acting
without any breaks. “OMG you’re my BFF, bro, I love you man!”