Sometimes you have to wonder, “when will they ever stop with the found footage madness?” Granted, I have really appreciated Paranormal 1 & 3, and Cloverfield. But for every decent hand-cam movie there are 4 bad ones. I don’t want any more Devil Inside and I’d also be ok if they ended the Paranormal series. (p.s. those movies were very profitable and thus will be getting sequels every year.)
With Chronicle, they are taking the tired found-footage format in a new direction (not horror) and focusing on three high school seniors as they discover something unexplainable in a mysterious hole in the ground. The first half of the movie is actually quite funny as these teens discover their new-found powers growing stronger every day.
I’m not going to lie. I couldn’t help but relate to these kids because all throughout my school years (and still today) I wished I had secret powers to astound others. Mostly I just wanted the Flash’s speed so I wouldn’t get so tired while running laps in gym.
If you have seen the preview, and I’d almost recommend you not watch it, you can see that one of the boys, Andrew, goes a little dark (to say the least). It’s actually quite refreshing to get a semi-realistic take on a superhero origin story, only this time seen from the perspective of what could become a supervillain. Yes, I don’t think I could geek out about this stuff any more than I already have.
For the normally cheap produced movies of this sort, it seems as there was a large budget. The climax of Chronicle is surprisingly bigger in scope and far more entertaining than the terrible superhero movies of last year (Lantern, Thor, and Capt. America). Yes, it may become a hand-cam version of Superman at times, but I wish I could say that Superman Returns entertained me a fraction of how Chronicle had. It is only February and I’m saying that 2012 is going to kill 2011’s movies. Chronicle has started the year right.
See this in the theater!
