Chronicle Movie Review by DieHardAlien

Chronicle (No not "The Chronicles of Narnia" or "The Spiderwick Chronicles" just Chronicle) is the new found-footage (I like to call it "shaky cam") superhero movie directed by Josh Trank and it stars Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, Michael B. Jordan and Michael Kelly. The movie's about three teenagers who get superpowers after getting exposed by some alien ship. At first, they start to use their powers for fun and pranks but until one of them gets out of control with his powers, things start to get serious, and I mean REALLY SERIOUS.

Now some people were mixed by the trailer, some people were excited and some people weren't. I was mixed and I didn't think it was going to be good but man was I surprised by this? This movie is EXCELLENT, I'm serious.

Now my favorite found-footage movie is "Cloverfield" because it was so scary and you felt for the characters. But the found-footage movies recently are going downhill from films like "Apollo 18" which was awful. But now, this might be my favorite found-footage movie and probably one of my favorite superhero movies.

The acting all around was great. All of the actors including the minor ones had perfect chemistry with each other. From the trailer, I thought the three leads were going to be unlikeable people that we were suppose to root for when one of them goes out of control. But NO, they were all great especially Dane DeHaan who plays Andrew. You can feel for Andrew since you know why he uses his powers for bad. He has an abusive father and a mother who is sick but then later you know he's going to use his powers against his father.

 The director of the film is "Josh Trank" which this is his directorial debut and he does an AMAZING job. He uses the most amazing tricks during the movie especially one where one of the characters uses his powers to hold the camera and it's just spectacular the way he does it. The other thing that's great is that usually in found-footage films there would be title cards at the beginning saying stuff like "The Government recovered this footage" but at the beginning, they just show the company logo and then the movie begins immediately no title cards no nothing and that's awesome. Trank is going to direct the "Fantastic Four" reboot, MAKE THE REBOOT TRANK, DO IT.

The script is also strong to because it first becomes this laugh-out loud comedy and then it turns into this dark dramatic superhero film. By the way the movie is really funny too the jokes are funny. The characters including the minor ones are developed well due to the way the tone of the script goes when it becomes a comedy or a dark drama.

The character that is the most well-developed is Andrew because when we first see him, we know why he wants to film everything and not doing it because he just wants too. We also get to see his really bad life due to (like I said earlier) he has an abusive father, his mother is sick and he is bullied a lot so you really feel for him.

The last half of the movie is OMG (OH MY GOSH) FANTASIC. We get to see the thing that you were dying for, A KICKBUTT SUPERHERO CLIMAX FIGHT. Let's face it, the ending in "Apollo 18" just ruined the movie but this ending is the best one in the found-footage genre so far. The ending is really intense, dark and even gritty. The city just gets TRASHED and DESTROYED from all the chaos that is happening. The payout for what happens was unexpecting (I'm not going to spoil what happens). It's the perfect way to end the movie and you want to hear something that will pee your pants, I WANT TO SEE A SEQUEL TO THIS, some of you may not want to see a sequel but this ending just leads up for a sequel and if they do make one, I HOPE IT'S GOOD.

And last, the effects in the movie are FANTASTIC. Their extremely impressive and I can't believe that the movie was made on a budget of $15 million and they made it look this epic and good especially in the climax.

I have NO problems with this movie but if I had one minor thing to nitpick at the climax, what happened to the camera? I know numerous camera were used for the sequence but I want to know what camera was there during the climax. But besides that, this movie is fantastic and is one of the best movies of 2012 so far and is my favorite found-footage movie of all time. It's the most original found-footage movies I've seen in a while and is also different from the other ones. BEAT THAT APOLLO 18. I was originally going to give this 4.5/5 Stars but my final rating is 5/5 Stars.


Final Rating - 5/5 Stars

  

Chronicle Movie Trailer