"Chronicle" Movie Review: A Documentary-esque Movie About Gaining Awesome Powers!

Perhaps the most dragging part of 20th Century Fox's newest movie offering, "Chronicle" is that it started so slow, you wanted the movie to get into the action right away. The first twenty minutes of the movie will take us slowly how the three main characters Steve Montgomery (Michael B. Jordan), Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan), and Matt Garetty's (Alex Russell) lives where like before they got their super powers. The movie's slow-paced storytelling makes you want to leave the cinema right away. It is understandable because the movie is just setting the mood of each character. However, what kept me glued to stay and watch until the end is surprisingly what made me curious to watch it — how their powers will evolve and how they will use their telekinesis powers!

True to its title, "Chronicle" documents the lives of three high school students. The operative word is "document" because the movie experience of watching "Chronicle" is like watching a whole documentary film from National Geographics or whatever channel networks in the world would do such.

The use of handheld mini digital camera sets the eye of perspective for this movie. It seems like everything — from beginning to end — was shot using a digital camera in the eyes of an independent filmmaker or a wannabe filmmaker. This reminds us of the 1999 film "The Blair Witch Project" where the whole film was shot to have that digital independent filmmaker wannabe feel. The way "Chronicle" was made also feels like watching "Paranormal Activity" only it is more awesome because of the telekinesis and flying human thingies.

I am not really a fan of annoying moving camera films and home video filming-like movies. As a matter of fact, I only watched the first twenty minutes of "The Blair Witch Project" when it was released on CDs some few years ago because I felt dizzy watching it and finishing the movie 'till the end would be a torture. However, the movie "Chronicle" might have the same feeling as you watch it, only it is less irritating and less annoying. Director Josh Trank knows his craft very well.

The movie "Chronicle" also has interesting dialogues. The exchange of lines of the actors in the first part of the movie looks like the movie has no prepared written scripts. It just feels like some natural conversations happening that wew captured on digital cameras. No cheesy lines, no outdated spiels. Only natural verses coming out from a typical American high school students.

Although I am not a fan of swinging and annoying camera shots, I like the idea of putting some modern elements in the films such as blogs, digital cameras, and camera phones among others and relevant social issues such as bullying, alcoholism, typical high school problems, family problems, and the like. These things give a touch of present-day situation, only done in a fictional way.

Overall, from all of the things that I have mentioned, it turns out, I enjoyed the movie "Chronicle". This I may say, if you like or a fan of superhero series with awesome powers, you might like this movie as well. "Chronicle" is now showing in the Philippines brought to you by 20th Century Fox distributed by Warner Bros. The official movie trailer of "Chronicle" is found here. Enjoy!