Ch@troom (2010) (Film Review)

Ch@troom (2010) For me, Ch@troom is another failed British film. Although it tries to show cyber-bullying, despair and identity crisis from an interesting point of view, the idea goes too far and the film loses its way. It tries to be more subtle than it is, because it’s still very messy.

These British actors are incredible, and you can’t take that away from them. But even though I’ve seen this film twice, I can’t find much more of interest than that. The sauce just doesn’t take. The film starts well, but then you expect something that doesn’t come. We don’t fully understand the motivations of the most horrible person in the film. A lot of questions remain unanswered. The ending is fine, but too quick. There should have been at least one or two more scenes. The music in the trailer is very good. The film ends with the magnificent track Turning The Mind by the group Maps.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson, the lead actor, has one hell of a charisma. He first came to prominence in 2009, at the age of 19, in Sam Taylor-Wood’s Nowhere Boy, in which he played the role of the young Beatle John Lennon. He went on to make a string of films, gaining fame the same year with Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass, in which he played the role of Dave Lizewski / Kick-Ass. The title Nowhere Boy is taken directly from the song Nowhere Man. In January 2017, he won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the thriller Nocturnal Animals.

This year, 2023, he will again be seen playing Kraven, the 5th spin-off revolving around the Spider-Man universe after Venom, Venom 2 (with Carnage), Morbius and Madame Web. He has already appeared in Avengers: Age of Ultron, directed by Joss Whedon. Whedon is an American producer, director and screenwriter and the creator of the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse and Marvel: Agents of SHIELD. He is also the director of the first Avengers. Apart from that, to get back to Aaron Taylor, we’ll also be treated to a remake of Nosferatu (1922). And next year, we’ll be treated to a third opus with 28 Years Later, again directed by Danny Boyle.

This film isn’t incredible and I’ve wondered if that’s down to the presence of Imogen Poots, no offence to her. But she’s in two films I really didn’t like like like Green Room (2015) and the remake Fright Night (2011), both starring the late Anton Yelchin. She was also in Vivarium (2019) which is very disturbing. But afterwards I remembered that she was also in 2019’s Black Christmas (not to be confused with the other two) and 28 Weeks Later (2007) which are both very decent films. But she’s also in the very good Cracks (2009). So… no, she’s not the problem either

Director Hideo Nakata is best known in the West for his J (Japanese horror) films – 1998’s Ringu, 1999’s Ringu 2 and 2002’s Dark Water. Ringu was remade in 2002 as The Ring by director Gore Verbinski. The sequel to the 2005 film The Ring 2 was directed by Nakata himself and it’s really not very good. As for Dark Water, it was also remade three years later, in 2005, by an unknown director, Walter Salles, Jr, because I think it’s his only film.

A film to see once if you’re not irritated by rather unbearable, weak or twisted teenagers.

My Rating