by Flack » Wed Jun 27, 2012 10:38 pm
I just finished watching 2012's Chronicle, and I had the same problem with this film that I have with every film like it.
In the movie, three high school seniors discover a MacGuffin that gives them the power of telekinesis. At first the trio use their powers to make baseballs float, but before long they are using them to pull pranks like causing havoc in a toy store and re-positioning people's cars around in the parking lot. Soon the boys discover they can levitate themselves too, and some minor levitation soon becomes a zooming trip through the clouds.
And, let's pause there for a moment. If YOU had the magical power of telekinesis, what would you do with it? Off the top of my head I can think of a million things to do -- some of them for financial gain, some of them simply for entertainment.
About the best thing the boys can come up with is making the least popular of the trio ("Andrew") the star of the high school talent show. Seriously. The best plan these three seniors can come up with is a juggling/tightrope-walking act for the high school talent show. That would not have made my top million things to do list.
Unfortunately for us all, Andrew has issues at home. His mom has terminal cancer, and his dad is an abusive drunk who, in between swigs of whiskey, downs his wife's pain pills. Andrew tries in vain to get his mother some medication, but he can't even manage that. First he uses his powers to mug a bunch of drug dealers outside his house. When that fails, he uses his powers to rob a convenient store. I don't know the last time you went into a convenient store, but every time I try to spend a $20 bill they treat me like the devil and I have to wait 5 minutes for the time delay safe to open. By the time I get my change, the Zingers have been zinged and the Slurpee's been slurped.
(Serious spoilers begin here.)
Eventually moody Andrew kills one of the other two boys in a fit of rage, a move that you would think would REALLY put boy #3 (Matt, his cousin) on edge. But nah, nothing suspicious about the most popular kid in school getting struck by lightning, right?
So eventually, and you can tell it's coming, there's going to be a face off between Andrew and Matt. And if you're in to special effects, you'll love the city wide battle as the two of them smash one another through walls and buildings and throw cars around and blow shit up. Hoo hah! And if you're in to logic you will be scratching your head most of the time, wondering why one doesn't just pop the head off the other one or turn him inside out and be done with the whole thing.
And during this entire sequence, and maybe it's just me, but I was thinking, couldn't these two work something out? How about you rule the northern hemisphere, and I'll take the southern one! Maybe we could switch off every other year for a change of scenery. We could go into business together as the world's greatest bank robbers ... or we could each go solo and do our own thing. Hell, you could become the world's greatest magician of all time! Or the world's best peeping tom! You could raise the Titanic, or pluck all the gold off of the sea floor! Or ... or ... or ...
Another thing that bothered me about the movie was that at no time did the kids really ever try to hide their powers. Andrew was the worst -- when one kid bullies him at school, he retaliates by yelling his name and then yanking out his teeth. The kids are constantly flying over to each other's houses. Surely a bunch of floating toys in a toy store or moving cars would make the 6pm news. None of these kids have ever heard of the concept of keeping things on the down low.
So in the end, Andrew (the bad kid) is going to get his. And like Anakin, his powers cannot save his mother. Instead of levitating her to a cancer ward, or levitating the cancer out of her (trust me, dumber shit happens in this film), or levitating some pain pills out of the pharmacy, instead he tries floating $30 out of a convenient store till and doesn't even do that well. I think I'd rather spend the day levitating free hot dogs into my mouth at the ball park and screwing with fly balls. I got it, I got it, I ... drat.
I just finished watching 2012's Chronicle, and I had the same problem with this film that I have with every film like it.
In the movie, three high school seniors discover a MacGuffin that gives them the power of telekinesis. At first the trio use their powers to make baseballs float, but before long they are using them to pull pranks like causing havoc in a toy store and re-positioning people's cars around in the parking lot. Soon the boys discover they can levitate themselves too, and some minor levitation soon becomes a zooming trip through the clouds.
And, let's pause there for a moment. If YOU had the magical power of telekinesis, what would you do with it? Off the top of my head I can think of a million things to do -- some of them for financial gain, some of them simply for entertainment.
About the best thing the boys can come up with is making the least popular of the trio ("Andrew") the star of the high school talent show. Seriously. The best plan these three seniors can come up with is a juggling/tightrope-walking act for the high school talent show. That would not have made my top million things to do list.
Unfortunately for us all, Andrew has issues at home. His mom has terminal cancer, and his dad is an abusive drunk who, in between swigs of whiskey, downs his wife's pain pills. Andrew tries in vain to get his mother some medication, but he can't even manage that. First he uses his powers to mug a bunch of drug dealers outside his house. When that fails, he uses his powers to rob a convenient store. I don't know the last time you went into a convenient store, but every time I try to spend a $20 bill they treat me like the devil and I have to wait 5 minutes for the time delay safe to open. By the time I get my change, the Zingers have been zinged and the Slurpee's been slurped.
(Serious spoilers begin here.)
Eventually moody Andrew kills one of the other two boys in a fit of rage, a move that you would think would REALLY put boy #3 (Matt, his cousin) on edge. But nah, nothing suspicious about the most popular kid in school getting struck by lightning, right?
So eventually, and you can tell it's coming, there's going to be a face off between Andrew and Matt. And if you're in to special effects, you'll love the city wide battle as the two of them smash one another through walls and buildings and throw cars around and blow shit up. Hoo hah! And if you're in to logic you will be scratching your head most of the time, wondering why one doesn't just pop the head off the other one or turn him inside out and be done with the whole thing.
And during this entire sequence, and maybe it's just me, but I was thinking, couldn't these two work something out? How about you rule the northern hemisphere, and I'll take the southern one! Maybe we could switch off every other year for a change of scenery. We could go into business together as the world's greatest bank robbers ... or we could each go solo and do our own thing. Hell, you could become the world's greatest magician of all time! Or the world's best peeping tom! You could raise the Titanic, or pluck all the gold off of the sea floor! Or ... or ... or ...
Another thing that bothered me about the movie was that at no time did the kids really ever try to hide their powers. Andrew was the worst -- when one kid bullies him at school, he retaliates by yelling his name and then yanking out his teeth. The kids are constantly flying over to each other's houses. Surely a bunch of floating toys in a toy store or moving cars would make the 6pm news. None of these kids have ever heard of the concept of keeping things on the down low.
So in the end, Andrew (the bad kid) is going to get his. And like Anakin, his powers cannot save his mother. Instead of levitating her to a cancer ward, or levitating the cancer out of her (trust me, dumber shit happens in this film), or levitating some pain pills out of the pharmacy, instead he tries floating $30 out of a convenient store till and doesn't even do that well. I think I'd rather spend the day levitating free hot dogs into my mouth at the ball park and screwing with fly balls. I got it, I got it, I ... drat.