Not even having sudden super powers can save Andrew of being a teenager, or himself. This is the premise of Chronicle, which sets the bar pretty high for future “found footage” films. Why is this film different? Here we don’t have cipher characters running away from witches or ghosts, we have a living breathing human being that shares his far from perfect life with us, and this type of cinematography enhances a sense of intimacy between the audience and the main character in a very unique way.

Andrew ( played by Dane DeeHan ) is a constant victim: he’s bullied in school and even by his own dad, his mother is terminally sick while struggling with  financial situations. His way to cope with this is to buy a camera and see the world through it, almost as if detaching himself of his surroundings hiding behind it.

In a series of events related to finding an strange object underground, him, his cousin Matt and a popular kid from his school called Steve, find out they now have powers: they have extra strength, they can move objects with their minds, even fly. And they discover this and put it to use in a way only teens would at first: they prank each other and strangers on the street. But as they become more in control of their powers something inside them changes as well, specially Andrew, who finds himself in an actually empowered position for the first time in his life.

With a very interesting use of camera (one of the major standing points of this film compared with other of this genre) now we see Andrew actually filming himself. He wants to be in his life, but that doesn’t save him of the things he can’t actually change, and he looks straight to the camera so we can see the hopelessness in his eyes.

But don’t get me wrong, this is no “Precious”. This film also has humor, uplifting scenes and some of the most visually interesting action sequences I have seen in recent recollection. The action doesn’t happen in front of us, we are holding the camera so we are “there”. I found this to be so effective, specially at the last sequences at the end.

Overall I can’t believe this is Josh Tranks directorial debut. This film is so innovative in its style, yet emotionally effective to an extend that had me heart wrenched at certain points of it. Even when Andrew doesn’t do the best of things and abuses his powers, we can feel it comes from a place of desperation, anger and sadness, and that sold this movie for me.

What would you do if you had super powers? Maybe I won’t do all the things I saw in this movie, but fly?. Definitively so. In the meantime I can still laugh at the little girl spooked by the teddy bear.