By Melissa Antoinette Garza
Andrew (Dane DeHaan) is bullied both by his drunk abusive father Richard (Michael Kelly) and jerks from school. He finds momentary peace by hanging out with his cousin Matt (Alex Russell) and friend Steve (Michael B. Jordan).
Sick of being beaten up he decides to buy a camera to film all that happens to him. He ends up taping everything. One night, Andrew, Matt and Steve go out for a walk. They find a hole and jump in only to find a glowing large crystal. They touch it and it changes from light blue to red.
They end up with a special power that they can make things float. Slowly, they become more powerful and can fly though every time they over exert the power they get a nosebleed.
Steve and Matt are happy to just do stupid little tricks like lifting the skirts of girls and moving cars so shoppers can’t find it when they come out of the store. One day as the three are having fun, Andrew uses his power to take care of a jerk driving behind them. He uses to much force and the truck ends up in a pond and the man ends up under the water. The boys panic and rush down to save the driver.
After that, they decide to make a pact and create rules to ensure that no one else became hurt. Andrew doesn’t follow the rules and after a bad night with a girl, he goes off his rocker and both those who tormented him and the outright innocent become casualties to his rage
I had been waiting to see this movie for a while and I was not disappointed. Even my husband who had a slight bias going in ended up liking it.
My husband’s bias was based on a short parody film that the writer, Max Landis had
done based on The Death and Return of Superman. It is apparent that Landis disliked the storyline and the DC characters introduced during that period. He also had issues with the totality of Superman. Steve’s (my husband) favorite superhero is Superman and though he states the Death and Return isn’t the best thing ever done, he feels that making a film and enlisting your friends to be in a parody fan fiction is immature and lame.
I ended up watching it on Youtube as I saw a lot of people thought it was funny. I really went in blind as I had never read the comic or saw the cartoon and really have no feelings on Superman other than I love Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor.
Honestly, I didn’t find it funny. I wanted to. Maybe, I’m just not a big enough fan of comics to understand the jokes. I actually thought that the storyline of the Green Lantern turning evil was awesome though Steve says the execution was poorly done.
That said Chronicle was awesome. At some points, it was just so exciting. I thought the development and transcendence of Andrew into a super villain was well executed. Even as he was killing innocent people and throwing the largest tantrum anyone has ever seen, he invoked sympathy.
I give kudos to DeHaan for portraying the outcast seeking revenge so well. Even after he did something horrible, one couldn’t help but cheer as he roughed up his father or yanked teeth out of a bully’s mouth at school.
Overall Rating: 8.5/10
