The film starts off in the bedroom of the main character Andrew, (played by Dane Dehaan) who is bullied by his classmates, his neighbors, and even his father. Andrew begins to record his everyday life on video camera with the purpose of documenting his father's abuse. Andrew's only friend is his cousin Matt (played by Alex Russell) who himself tends to think of Andrew as a loser. It is not until Matt drags Andrew to a party that Andrew begins to come out of his shell and make friends. However, all of this begins to occur when Matt and a popular classmate Steve (played by Michael B. Jordan) come across a strange cave that houses a glowing rock that makes the three pass out. Afterwards, the group start to notice they are gaining strange powers that happen to be growing stronger by the day.
The first thing I noticed about Chronicle is how strongly the film cares about it's characters. The film begins showing how Andrew's father is abusive, his mother is terminally ill, and his classmates treat him like garbage. Right from the start of the film I got a sense that Andrew is troubled and instantly connect with him. The cousin fights with identity issues and teen peer-pressure and Steve shows us that even the most popular kid in school can be a caring and compassionate person by wanting to use his newly found powers to help people. The film at this point has already positively surpassed my initial negative impressions of the film due to this fact alone. Due to the characters being so strong, I cared about all three of them throughout the whole runtime. Whether or not anyone enjoys this film will solely rely on if the viewer can successfully connect with these characters.
The film starts to take a dark turn when Andrew's negative world view skews his actions into using his powers to harm others. It is this point in the film where the whole tone takes a completely different turn and the characters start to question their actions and each other's actions and the film turns into sort of a compelling thriller. The most impressive aspect of Chronicle is how well the actors portray their characters and how convincing the actions of the characters and the dialog is to how I would perceive a teenager would act in this day and age. I honestly feel like if high school seniors did possess super powers, the actions would pretty much mimic the actions of the characters in the film. All of this makes Chronicle feel much more authentic than most films portraying high school kids and makes the film much more enjoyable to watch. The film also tackles the super power aspect respectfully by keeping both the viewer and the characters clouded in confusion of what these powers really are and not treading hokey territory by having the characters even think about fighting crime or wearing tights.
My big complaint about the film is the special effects. Often times there will be an action on screen heavily using special effects that simply looks odd on-screen mixed with the film's camcorder "guerrilla video" styled shooting that throws off the visual style. The special effects do not necessarily look bad; everything fails to blend in properly unlike some films that attempted to do the same thing (Troll Hunter, Cloverfield). Even though the film properly explains why; the video camera tends to film the action as any standard film does (pointing at the actors and not being in the first person perspective) and can also throw off the vibe of the film. Both of these complaints do not ruin the film at all but they do stand out like a sore thumb.
Chronicle was a film I wrote off well before its release and the positive word-of-mouth drew me into the theater. I was pleasantly surprised with the acting, the serious tone of the film, and the pacing of the film and walked out of the theater quite pleased. Chronicle is the first sleeper hit of the year and I honestly recommend film buffs to plop down their cash with an open mind and give the film a try.
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