Last night I saw the movie Chronicle. I was extremely excited to see this movie mostly due to how sweet the trailer looked. Was this movie everything I expected it to be? -Yes. Is that a good thing? -Not sure. I did not go into this movie with high hopes for greatness and I did not leave the theater thinking anything like that either. This movie was pure entertainment and just refreshingly original.

Synopsis: Three high school students make an incredible discovery, leading to their developing uncanny powers beyond their understanding. As they learn to control their abilities and use them to their advantage, their lives start to spin out of control, and their darker sides begin to take over.

Chronicle stars Dane Dehaan, Alex Russell, Michael B. Jordan, and Michael Kelly and was directed by Josh Trank. Not quite sure who Josh Trank is? You would recognize his work he did here in Pittsburgh on the mini-series The Kill Point that aired on Spike.

@PatHanavan’s Thoughts: The entire movie is shot from the perspective of the characters with their own cameras. Andrew, the protagonist, is a sheltered loner who is often picked on in high school who lives with his drunk of a father and his dying sick mother. He decides to start a “Chronicle” of his daily life with his camera. While visiting a rave and walking around like the creepy artist kid from American Beauty, he gets embarrassed by a pissed off boyfriend who did not appreciate Andrew filming his girlfriend. Then he is outside crying, that is when Steve finds him and tells Andrew to follow him to what him and Matt found. From there they crawl down a hole in the ground and get their powers.

While inside the hole you can see what ever the hell it is down there that gives them their powers. Looks alien-like and it’s energy is messing with the camera footage. You only get to see certain parts of what is happening down there. I would tell you what it actually is but you never get to find out so don’t get your hopes up.

From this point you get to watch them test and learn their new found powers. The movie continues on, their powers get stronger, and then Andrew becomes an incredibly huge asshole due to his father being a drunk and the stress from his dying mother.

The POV camera style of shooting this movie was clever but not necessary. Best quick description I can come up with for the movie is Hancock meets Cloverfield. The Cloverfield style of filming was completely unnecessary for the entire movie. Just about every scene starts out with scripted dialogue explaining the camera usage and why it’s recording. They completely overkilled everything when talking about the cameras. To properly film the final scene Andrew steals a bunch of people’s iPhones and has them float around to document everything….. Bullshit. That part was just extremely cheesy. It would have been cool to just use the POV style while they were discovering their powers and then film the rest of Chronicle like a regular movie.

There could have been a sweet boob scene or spice it up with some sexiness. They visit a rave and a house party during the movie, but nothing cool happened. I have been out of high school for a few years now so I am not sure what the parties are like anymore. In Chronicle they visit the absolute most impressive talent show after-party ever. We did not have talent show after-parties in mansions when I was in high school. Times are changing!

I have no idea, why or how, one minute they are like Hancock and can fly around and smash through statues and buildings but then the next minute can be shot and hurt. Andrew is near a gas station explosion and ends up in the hospital with burns all over his body. Andrew was wearing a Fireman’s jacket at this point, a type of clothing that protects a normal human from fire. His powers are the strongest, if that was me fire would just bounce off me. WTF Max Landis!

Overall, I would say this movie is definitely worth seeing. Look past everything I just brought up and it would be a pretty sweet movie. When I got home I tried to move everything with my mind. Even this morning I tried to brush my teeth with my mind, it did not work. The moral of the story is, if you find a creepy hole in the ground with a strange object inside of it making a very loud scary noise, you should crawl in and check it out.

How could this movie have earned a third thumb up from me? If the black kid, Steve, was actual Hancock but as a teenager and Chronicle was just the prequel to the movie Hancock. I would have stood up and applauded!

If you see it, let me know what you think. @PatHanavan