By Donovan Hall

Most super power movies come out with thousands of fans waiting to see their beloved comic book story on the big screen. However, “Chronicle” is a unique and twisted view on the idea of super powers that strays away from comic books.

“Chronicle” is the tale of three friends who discover super human abilities via a giant glowing rock underground. The story follows Steve, the school’s most celebrated jock, Matt, a self righteous hipster, and his cousin Andrew, a lonely wastebasket for the world to dump its problems on. Once the boys stumble upon these powers, their previous social roles suddenly become insignificant and the question arises; What would you do if you had super powers?

Even though it isn’t based on a comic, “Chronicle” is similar to some super hero stories in how the boys accidentally gained super human abilities, but besides that, the movie differs from your average comic book movie in a few ways.

First off —  the movie is shot from a hand held camera that Andrew holds. This effect gives off that “faux documentary” style that has become popular ever since “The Blair Witch Project.” Thankfully, Andrew has steady hands because a good number of these movies that use this style think that it’s ok to have the camera man have epilepsy. Plus, throughout the movie the fluidity of the camera gets better and better.

Something else that separates this movie from other super hero flicks, is the lack of focus on the background story of the powers. In a genre that’s already hard to believe, adding a detailed back story to where powers come from can really take away all plausibility. This movie does just the opposite, by focusing on the ramifications of the discovering the powers and leaving some malarkey back story behind. By doing this it allows the story to focus on what happens to the characters when they are given this power and how it changes their views on the world.

This allows for excellent character development between the three boys. It’s not the overplayed story of super heroes and bad guys battling it out, but instead, a look at the idea of becoming all powerful and how they decide to use it in their lives. In reality, if people gained super powers suddenly, would they really rush to save the world from bad guys, or use it for their own gain?

Overall, the movie has believable acting, a memorable and slightly humorous script, characters you can care about and a story you can actually relate to yourself. What it has made me realize is that if I was given powers suddenly that I would lean more towards using them for my own means. Does this mean that I would be a bad guy or would I simply be adapting and evolving? Does great power always have to come with great responsibility or can it just come with the great ability to wreck things for the heck of it. Check out “Chronicle” and see for yourself.

Donovan Taylor Hall