So this movie was directed by Josh Trank whose career was essentially killed by the whole (#woke) Fantastic Four reboot debacle. If you don't remember, he got into a fight with the studio and he took the brunt of the blame for the movie absolutely sucking. However, Chronicle was the movie that put him on the map. I had heard bad things, but saw the IMDB rating was 7 and then heard about that all female version, so I was curious. Plus, it's written by Max Landis, so bonus points for that. I think Max is a great script writer, but not as good at directing.
Anyway, Dane DeHaan (you'll know his face) and Alex Russell (I guess he's on SWAT?) star. Oh, and some no name dude, Michael B. Jordan.
This is a found footage movie and the means of the movie being filmed is laid out rather well, although you will easily recognize many shots that were clearly NOT their own cameras. Still, I appreciate the effort.
The movie starts off really slowly to set the picture of Dane's life because this is really his movie. To give you an idea of how slow, at one point I thought to myself, "I guess Trank does suck if he makes a movie about getting superpowers this boring." However, I assure you things pick up significantly later.
Dane is a troubled teen whose mom has cancer and whose dad turned to booze and violence to cope. Alex is just a dude. Michael is the star of the high school and Mr. Popular. While at a party many party goers find a hole in the ground with weird noises coming out of it. Michael decides to go get Alex and Dane, which is odd considering no relationship had been established between them, so why is Mr. Popular seeking them out? Anyway, they get back to the hole and everyone else is gone. (No drama here, they simply went back to the party, but still...very shaky detail.) The three guys go into the hole and stuff happens. Now they have telekinesis. It starts off weak, but grows in power significantly the more they use it.
This part of the movie is interesting. I think Max and Josh absolutely NAIL what would go on if this happened to immature teen boys. They do dumb shit and it will legit piss you off. They're intentionally mean to some, do stuff that should have gotten them caught, think about zero consequences, and so on. Sadly, the stuff you would also expect teenage boys to do doesn't happen on camera. Well, there is one example, but it's lame.
Well, with great power comes great responsibility (Stan Lee was a genius.) and that's where everything goes south.
DeHaan really dominated the movie with his talent. Kid's a great actor. Jordan does really well, but you can tell he had not yet found his acting grove, plus he's not given a great role to work with. Russell was the odd man out and I assure you that if they could go back in time, they'd switch his and Jordan's casting.
The first half is a slog, but overall I was entertained. The second half got pretty cool. I also get why they want to do a female version for the sequel. I just hope it's not all woke bullshit and they hire people who can portray teenage girls in the same way these guys portrayed teenage boys.