CHRONICLE (2011)
As a fan of comic books and people with superheroes, as well as "found footage" style movies, I was quite eager to see this movie. And when I finished watching, I wasn't disappointed.
Our main characters are as follows; Andrew the high school loser, Matt the cousin of Andrew, and Steve the possibly coolest kid in school. Andrew doesn't have the best life going for him. He's picked on regularly in school, and his home life isn't quite peaches either, as he has to live with his often drunk father and his dying, bed-ridden mother. He decides to get himself a video camera and (obviously) record everything that goes on around him. His cousin Matt wants Andrew to go party with him in an effort to break out of his shell. In doing so he starts to talk to Steve, the nominee for school president. Steve and Matt find a strange hole in the ground later, and after hearing some strange sounds decides to jump in and look around, Andrew reluctantly following. Now, call me cowardly if you must, but I don't think I would go in that hole in the daytime, much less in the night. Especially with weird noises coming out of it. I'm forced to believe that drinking wasn't all these kids were taking in that night.
Anyway, they discover some sort of meteorite that starts to glow strange colors, and the three get overwhelmed with the noise. Next scene shows that they are developing powers, like telekinesis, and eventually levitation/flight. A good chunk of the movie from here on is of the three forming a bond from the powers, and learning new tricks and pulling pranks on people. Unfortunately, Andrew's life still doesn't improve much, especially at home, and he starts to alienate himself from everybody. His anger overtakes him and results in a pretty sweet looking, property destroying final showdown.
My overall thoughts are as follows: I thought overall the acting was pretty good, the three friends seemed pretty convincing in how they acted towards each other. I think my least favorite of the three was Andrew. His character was a borderline stereotypical loser (not that that isn't normal in real life. Hell, I was kind of a loser in high school myself) who at times seemed unnecessarily like a little bitch. I'm also not a big fan of the "abusive parent(s)" role. It seems to me that that kind of character has been used so many times over the years, I think I'm just tired of seeing it. Luckily though for this flick, it didn't take up a lot of the movie's run time.
As for the overall production value, I must say I was pretty impressed. When telekinesis was being used it always seemed believable looking to this reviewer. And while there were some shaky camera moments (see Black Death review for my rant about shaky cam shots), I make an exception for "found footage" flicks. Since the character is an amateur who is holding a video camera, realistically you would expect that sort of thing. And speaking of camerawork, the idea of Andrew eventually using telekinesis to move the camera around for filming was a pretty great idea.
So overall, you need to check it out. But if you see a random hole in the middle of nowhere, I don't recommend you jump in without a thought.
Movie rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Found Footage rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Mr. Bucklesworth over and out
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