Chatroom (2010)

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Good start, but then it gets ruined

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

A group of jaded teenagers meet online in an internet chatroom called Chelsea Teens! The group led by William a clever and manipulative adolescent, form a quick and tight bond via sharing their most intimate secrets with each other. However as they bond tighter together it is apparent some members of the chatroom have more sinister agendas.Director Hideo Nakata is best well known for Ringu, a chilling tale of a mysterious video which kills anyone who watches it, was in many ways the catalyst for Hollywood remaking Japanese horror. Ringu was remade as The Ring, with Naomi Watts, quickly followed by Ju-on, remade as The Grudge starring Buffy. In both cases the Hollywood remake is not a patch on the original. And this is what Chatroom feels like, a cheap and rushed Hollywood remake. However this time there is no precursor.Let's start with the good stuff though. At the heart of Chatroom there is an interesting and potentially compelling premise. The internet is the one place which offers true anonymity and Nakata portrays this via an innovative physical visualisation of the online world, focusing on the chatroom arena. You watch the characters make their way down long corridors filled with stereotypical internet users deep in conversation with each other. You see couples getting busy who clearly don't match the physical description they are giving each other, alongside the more sinister picture of grown adults talking with young children. Along the corridors there are a number of different doors, each the gateway into a different chatroom. Once inside Nakata films the interactions as physical encounters, with each character sat on a chair facing the others, in something akin to a group counseling session. The occasional flashbacks to the users sat at their computers keeps us grounded in the real world and works well in demonstrating how some characters, but not all, portray themselves in a very different light online.However this interesting premise is let down by a poorly constructed script and distinct lack of character development. The dialogue between the group at their first encounter feels incredibly forced and the ease with which William (Aaron Johnson - post Kick Ass) leads the group into sharing their most intimate secrets is far too rushed. The secrets which each member chooses to share are clichéd at best and ill thought through and borderline offensive at worst. In a film with effectively only 5 characters there should be enough scope within the script to bring each character to a satisfying conclusion. Unfortunately this is not the case here, with the film quickly focusing on the relationship between William and Jim (Matthew Beard) so leaving the other three characters floating in the wind. There is simply no effort made to resolve their sub plots and all three feel significantly short changed. I was left sorely disappointed by Chatroom. Through its clichéd characters and lack plot development you are left with what feels like a hollow shell of a film. You have to give it credit for attempting to deal with the dangers associated with the internet such as sexual predators and teen suicide, but it does so in such a clumsy and misjudged manner that whatever message it is trying to portray is simply lost. With a director with the pedigree of Nakata and a premise of real potential this should have been better. In fact it needs remake.

Before I set to record this film, that was shown on Film 4 last night, I presumed it'd be a trite U.S. comedy/horror, full of gross-out and stoned slackers.How pleasantly surprised I was to find it to be a deep, unpredictable British psychological thriller that's high on design and imagination. Yes, the actors look like they've escaped off sets of U.K teen dramas such as Skins, but they are playing characters that that market already caters for.It's quite neat how the protagonist, Aaron Johnson, (Will) is accessing the chat-room in question via his PC or smartphone but is also then seen within it. As we soon get to know, Will's psychological make-up and difficulties are complex and largely unexplained. Is the chat-room itself purely in his mind and is the labyrinth of other rooms that we see at the start also only in his imagination? If so, that's quite a neat way of adding extra texture and substance that's already there.The challenging soundscapes and things like the animations add extra meat to the body of expression that director Hideo Nakata uses - and I personally liked them and thought they added to the film. Some of the discussions on serious emotional conditions and suicide may help those who are exposed to those feelings and experiences, or they may not - depending on how mentally well one is. But at least it raises them, which is quite brave.I don't necessarily think that the "hammy" acting that many have criticised is out of place here - touching and nuanced performances would be out of place in this aggressively symbolic and stylised movie. And, when one types on Facebook, with modern, abbreviated cyber-speak and even more so with Twitter, then dialogue is even more stilted, with even less room for delicate expression.The other characters add to the mixture of messed-up heads and some social comment on what is acceptable and what isn't gets some interesting airing. I think many viewers who've come back from the pub and expected a simple cat and mouse cyber-bullying flick may have well been unprepared for how deep and complex this thriller is and been put off by that. It's a brave and imaginative film; flawed, yes. A nice bonus for those of us who've visited the locations such as Camden Lock and London Zoo are indeed, the familiar locations.

Chatroom is a look at the bizarre world of the internet. We are forced to examine the behaviour that we see so often in chatrooms and forums and relate it to real life.In Chatroom, the internet is presented as a building with different rooms representing the different chatrooms available. William (Aaron Johnson) sets up his own chatroom in which four other teenagers soon join. William appears friendly and caring at first, giving his new online friends advice in their personal lives.William makes his chatroom private so that nobody else can join, creating a more concentrated space for advising his online friends. But we learn very quickly that William is not what he seems. As the film flashes between the virtual world and reality, we discover William is very unhappy with his home life and not as normal as we first thought. We also see that William has found a particularly unhealthy hobby. It is at this point that we learn that William has much more serious plans than making friends as he persuades them to do very odd things all the while convincing them that what they are doing is normal.I found this film because I had seen Aaron Johnson in Nowhere Boy and Kickass and was very impressed with him. I found his performance in this a bit hammy at times but it matched the tone of the filmI liked the concept of the film. It was interesting to look at real people behaving the way people do online and showing how odd it is. But I felt the film was a bit over the top. Nakata presents the internet as a dark underworld with people who seem to be obsessed with dark subject matters. I found the hold that the internet has over the teens quite unrealistic and I felt that as the lines between the virtual world and reality became blurred the film started to verge on absurd. The film to me started as a quirky insight into online behaviour but descended into a predictable thrillerBut all in all, the film is quite fun if you don't take it too seriously

Five troubled teenagers connect to the chatrooom "Chelsea Teens!" in Internet to meet each other and talk in a self-help group. When the depressive Jim decides to commit suicide, the destructive sociopath William lures and pushes him to the edge to force him to kill himself.The storyline of "Chatroom" is intriguing since the author uses a physical room to depict the conversations of the teens as if they were happening in the real world. Unfortunately this promising and interesting concept is the only good thing in this boring and shallow film. The execution with several subplots keep going back and forth from Internet to the real world but they are unattractive and maybe indicated for teens. In the end, I was no longer paying attention to this annoying flick. My vote is three.Title (Brazil): "Chat – A Sala Negra" ("Chat – The Black Room")