Chronicle (2012)
Directed by Josh Trank
Starring Dane Dehaan, Alex Russell and Michael B. Jordan
At a warehouse rave three school friend discover a hole in the middle of the forest. They decide to check it out and come back out having gained super powers. The story plays out with them discovering more and more powers that they can achieve as there powers get stronger. The three main characters all have different personalities, the cool guy, the class president and the loser, who in normal life probably wouldn’t be friends. Their status at school ends up deciding what role they take on in the superhero universe and what to do with their powers.
Most of the film is shot from the perspective of the loser, Andrew. He seems to have the most control over his powers and has a camcorder with him at all times to document events. If you have seen the trailers for the film you will know that Andrew goes rogue and becomes the so called villain. He anger that he possesses comes from being bullied both at home and school. He finally can’t take it anymore and snaps causing the film to take a different direction and go slightly dark.
I wouldn’t say the film blew me away but it was enjoyable. The problem was that the film wasn’t a found footage film; it was a film where all the footage was filmed from an in camera perspective. When they didn’t have a camcorder with them the footage was shown by CCTV or someone else’s camera and it just seemed a bit coincidental that there was something or someone else there to film them.
However this was enjoyable and I would recommend it to fans of superhero films. Just don’t expect any spandex or cool outfits.
Film Fact
The film does have a student feel to it. This could be down to this being Director Josh Trank’s first feature film and him being aged only 26.
thefriedgold 
Think I enjoyed this much more than you! I actually wasn’t expecting the camera footage style, but I found it worked quite well and gave the film a nice intimate non-blockbuster feel – and the title suddenly made sense.
To be honest, the trailer pretty much told the whole story, so don’t expect much more – what did surprise me though was the amount of time they spent building up Andrew’s character, resulting with him being much more three dimensional than I was expecting. Props to Dane Dehaan (who looked incredibly like a young DiCaprio, or was it just me?) I thought he played it really well, and when he got angry I was getting angry with him and wanted him to unleash his powers!
Defo worth a watch; an understated super-power movie that they’ve put a lot of thought into. And there’s room for a sequel in my opinion…
I do agree with most things you say, apart from the DiCaprio, can’t say i saw it myself.
You do find yourself wanting Andrew to use his powers even though he was the film villian and this was down to making the audience feel sorry for him.
I suppose it also makes the audience think what way would you go. Good or bad?