Three This Week: Chronicle, John Carter, and Silent House

Chronicle
(John Trank, 2012)

Chronicle is a movie about superpowers. It tries to do something few other "powers" movies have done and it succeeds for the most part. In many ways it is like the cult time travel film Primer in the approach that it takes to telling a story about how negative things can come from having access to awesome power. Overall I felt like the FX were decent (especially relative to films like Cloverfield and fellow South African District 9). I feel like we are almost "getting there" with the integration of POV filming and "verité" effects. Still this film had some obvious story issues and some weak acting at times. A decent effort and a lesson to bullies. . . . (5/7)

(I wish Shane Carruth and Primer had had $12M to play with. . . .)

John Carter
(Andrew Stanton, 2012)

John Carter is Andrew Stanton's (Wall-E, Finding Nemo ) attempt to translate the Edgar Rice Burroughs classic "A Princess of Mars" to the big screen. In terms of capturing the essence of the source material while avoiding some of the author's own weaknesses he succeeds. This is a fun film. It has some nice editing and the effects are generally not distractingly CG looking. The costume, prop, and set design are all solid and in places stunning. The inclusion of the Edgar Rice Burroughs character (Daryl Sabara) is actually in keeping with the original material! I like that most of HBO's ROME cast seem to have made it into the film. Giacchino's score is fine. I liked the 3D too. Good escapist play. Taylor Kitsch looks appropriate as John Carter and Lynn Collins is beautiful as Dejah Thoris. Willem Dafoe is great as Tars Tarkas. Also my name: Jed is prominent throughout the original material and film. Way to go. 6/7

Go to the website or IMDB and look at the full voice cast: some heavy hitters in there!
Hopefully the sequel will be better.

Silent House
(Chris Kentis/ Laura Lau, 2012)

Silent House attempts to raise the fear bar and exploit the "single long take" idea to tell what to me is a wholly predictable and unoriginal story. I liked the acting by Elizabeth Olsen-- but once I conceived of where the story was going in the first 20 minutes or so, it is just a long wait to be right. I was. Like Haute Tension I would have liked this movie much better if it was not a scary story about real people with fractured selves. Spoiler alert! Oops. Hey predictable is as predictable does. Still this was scary but the long take scheme adds little cinematic value to the story. Disturbing in the way that Hard Candy, Butterfly Effect and Gothika are disturbing.
(5/7 for scenic scares, 4/7 for obvious storytelling)