What do you get when you cross one of the biggest crazes in Hollywood, the super hero movie; with what is probably the second biggest craze, the found footage phenomenon? For the purposes of this review, you get something like “Chronicle”, the story of three teens who gain super powers and struggle with the responsibility that comes with these powers.
“Chronicle” begins with Andrew, a misunderstood kid, who has decided to video tape his life, apparently because he is living in an abusive household. Early on he locks his seemingly drunk father out of his room. At school, he is picked on by nearly everyone. He really only has one friend, Matt, and even he doesn’t seem to like Andrew all that much.
Everything changes at some kind of high school rave party, when Steve, Mr. popular, class president candidate, talks Andrew into filming a discovery. The boys stumble on a mysterious cave in the woods, where they find some freaky glowing rocks. Quickly the camera shorts out and the boys black out. When they awake, they realize they have each began to develop “powers”, beginning with telekinesis.
As they movie progresses, the range of abilities in each kid grows. Of course, being kids, they are for the most part, completely irresponsible with these powers. Andrew, especially, seems to take more satisfaction into tapping into his dark side with these powers and soon enough, Steve and Matt are trying to control him as Andrew is losing control himself.
“Chronicle” is written by Max Landis, who created the short film, “The Death and Return of Superman”; and is directed by Josh Trank. The movie is for the most part a found footage type movie but every now and then switches to a traditional camera mode, which after the POV camera technique is introduced early on, never really makes sense. The acting is decent at best and being that the actors are pretty much unknowns, it helps to make the characters a little more believable.
“Chronicle” is a decent found footage movie that tries to capitalize on the super hero crazy but there are a lot of inconsistencies that take the audience out of the world of realism that is being created within the film. There is some really cool ideas floating around here but the execution of those ideas ultimately dooms the flick. That being said, for what it is, it’s far more watchable than most of the horror footage type movies generated each year.
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Theatrical trailer for “Chronicle”:
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