BEFORE: Like "The Rocketeer", this is about flying heroes - umm, I think. And linking from "The Rocketeer", Billy Campbell was also in a film called "Almost Kings" with Alex Russell, one of tonight's heroes. Another actor turns out to have been in a film with both Gary Oldman AND Tom Hardy, but now I'm second-guessing my linking plan.
THE PLOT: Three high school friends gain superpowers after making an incredible discovery underground. Soon, though, they find their lives spinning out of control and their bond tested as they embrace their darker sides.
AFTER: This is another one of those "found footage" films, like "Cloverfield" or "Blair Witch Project", in which I'm asked to believe that this whole situation could have been recorded on a video-camera, or a collection of cell phone cameras combined with security cameras, and edited after the fact into a collection of scenes which the language of film dictates must constitute a movie. That's fine, but let's acknowledge it's not that - that's a smokescreen, since clearly this was made with special effects and professional cameramen, so someone spent a lot of money to make the film look amateurish. If you can turn off your brain long enough to believe this was shot on a camcorder, that's great, but I just can't.
It's especially hard when a camera is lost or destroyed, but yet the footage is still available and usable. Yet the plot of the movie clearly states that camera was lost... In the second half of the film, one character develops the ability to float a camera to wherever is necessary to get the best shot, and mentally keep it aloft for as long as needed - at this point the movie shifts from a handheld perspective to the omniscient camera work that we're all more accustomed too. It's another trick, one cleverly explained by the plot, but it's still a trick.
Anyway, we're back to the subject of bullies, which was seen in "The Amazing Spider-Man", "Man of Steel", "Kick-Ass" and to a lesser extent, "Iron Man 3" and other films this week. When an outcast or bullied nerd happens to get super-powers, the first and simplest impulse is to gain vengeance against one's oppressor, however that's really not the type of action a hero should take. Peter Parker (eventually) learned to rise above the bullying, and make peace with Flash Thompson, eventually regarding him as a sympathetic character and friend.
However, that's not very cinematic - so in "Chronicle" they take the other path, and the central figures become antiheroes of a sort, using their newfound telekinesis powers for personal gain, like impressing girls, winning at beer pong or performing "magic" tricks in a school talent show. This eventually leads to a question over the nature of good vs. evil - do the powers bring out their darker sides, or were they always there to begin with, with no way to manifest themselves?
The special effects in the second half are quite well done, there's lots of stuff I haven't seen in film before, but other parts are really pedantic, just repetitive battle elements, similar to what was seen in the Superman/Zod battle in "Man of Steel".
Also starring Dane DeHaan, Michael B. Jordan, Michael Kelly (last seen in "Man of Steel"), Ashley Hinshaw.
RATING; 6 out of 10 nosebleeds
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