Chronicle

Chronicle

Stars: Vince from Friday Night Lights, and a couple of other guys.

So I'm finally posting something about Chronicle.  I saw it two weekends ago and enjoyed it but just never got around to putting anything in writing.  It's gotten pretty decent reviews and I get it.  It was well done, well acted, and interesting.  My biggest problem with it was the whole (sort of) found footage aspect of it.  Actually it isn't "found" footage so much as just edited together footage.  But they never address who put it all together.  At least in some of the found footage horror movies they give us a little paragraph at the beginning or end explaining where the footage came from.  This movie never does that and the footage is put together too well.  Not to mention the fact that whoever did it somehow had access to footage shot by police and news cameras.  Ooookay.

The story is: three high school boys go down a hole in the ground, see some glowy light and come back out of the hole with super powers.  Mostly it's telekinesis type stuff and if they use too much too fast they get nose bleeds.  They get more and more powerful, especially Andrew the loner guy, and things are fun until they aren't. 

Prior to the glowy light cave, Andrew had decided to put his life on tape, which includes getting beat up by his dad and some bullies from school.  It's because of this camera that he gets invited in the hole with cousin Matt and popular guy, Steve.  So that establishes how we have access to the guys and their journey through the first 2/3 of the movie.  The last section though, the section where things go very wrong -the rules they set get ignored- has footage from various other cameras.  If you don't ask questions about where that footage comes from then this is a pretty cool movie.  The guys have some good talks, they explore their powers in interesting ways (like playing catch in the sky), and generally have a good time.  But as I mentioned, things go south for the boys and they end up on police and news cameras. 

If you are interested in seeing this, don't feel compelled to rush to the theater.  This would make an excellent rental.  Also, if possible, don't over-think things like I do.  For example, I'm still pissed about Rosebud and Citizen Kane.