“Chronicles” takes the found footage style, found in movies like “Paranormal” and “Cloverfield,” mixes it up with superhero movies like “Superman” and creates an original action packed film with characters without an “Aflred” or ”Uncle Ben” to develop their moral compass. The found footage style is pretty unique in that it’s not used like it typically is. The camera isn’t at a standstill, there’s not just one camera, and it’s used to physically show character development. 

Three high school students, Andrew-the outcast (Dane DeHaan), Alex-the popular kid (Matt Garetty) and Steve-the kid destined for greatness (Michael B. Jordan), become close friends after a discovery that gives them the ability to move things around with their minds, telekinesis. At first it begins with pranks and tricks in their backyards and grocery stores, but as they get stronger they’re able to move bigger objects like cars and eventually learn to fly.

After an incident where Andrew pushes a truck driver off the road and into a ditch and nearly kills a man, the guys realize that it’s time to make rules to keep them from harming anyone else. Their bond begins to become complex, and you start to see Andrew leaning towards the crazy side splitting the three in a struggle between what is right and what is wrong.

I enjoyed the story of “Chronicle” because they weren’t vigilantes with costumes to hide their identities and there wasn’t anything about trying them trying to help people. They’re just high-school students with awesome powers dealing with what high schoolers typically deal with: trying to get laid, becoming popular and looking into colleges. If I had super powers where I could fly and move objects around I would definitely use them just to show off and probably try to profit from.

I’d like to think I’d become the reluctant super hero who happens to walk into a situation where I’d have to decide between being a normal passerbyer or get involved and save the day. Going around and looking for bad guys to beat up is unrealistic and only happens in DC and Marvel comics. You never really get to see what normal everyday people would do if they just happened to get super powers. I don’t think it would be anything like you normally see in super hero movies. People would just live their lives and most likely videotape themselves doing it and getting discovered on YouTube.

“Chronicle” has probably the best usage of the found-footage style of filming I’ve seen yet. I have enjoyed almost every movie that has done this, but “Chronicle” brings something different to the table. At first, it begins with a single camera used by Andrew to record every abusive act brought on by his father, but as the movies moves along you run into people like Casey (Ashley Hinshaw), who films everything and gives you a different point of view through her camera.

When Andrew begins to harness his powers you see the camera floating around him filming everything he does as appose to carrying it while looking through the lens. His positioning behind the camera represents him as the outcast looking in. As his character develops and he is able to harness his powers bringing the camera behind him Andrew transitions from the outcast looking in the to the prominent figure that he becomes in the storyline. It’s not until the final climax when you see the video footage used in a very cool way. The footage jumps around to people’s phones and iPads in their homes and on the streets while an epic battle is destroying everything in sight. People today record everything and I think director Josh Trank took these social networking tools and used it to give a unique viewpoint.

“Chronicle” wasn’t at all disappointing for me, especially since I went in thinking it would be just an alright flick, it was actually pretty impressive and fun to watch. It has a lot of newcomers including writer Max Landis (“The Death and Return of Superman”). “Chronicle,” in my opinion, is sure to go down as one of the best superhero/found-footage movies ever made and I think you would be doing yourself a disservice if you didn’t see it asking yourself “what would I do if I discovered an “alien artifact” and inherited super-powers?” or “what wouldn’t I do?”