Chronicle

I like this movie. Applying the Cloverfield style to a superhero story is an interesting concept, and for the most part I think they handled the POV really well. It goes overboard by the end, but it works okay. The main character is obsessed with filming himself, so that becomes part of the POV element. There's a really interesting device in that he uses his super powers to control the camera, so when you see a camera move that would make you suspicious in another POV movie it's actually kind of creepy here because you know the camera is moving because he's making it move.

It's also interesting because it doesn't have a "found footage" premise where we're supposed to believe that the government or a reporter or somebody has recovered and assembled all this footage. It's just told through the perspective of these personal devices to give the story a more claustrophobic feel and an organic sense of pacing. It becomes a statement on the YouTube generation, the way we see things now. It also reflects the characters, who mostly fail to grasp the power they've been given. At one point one of them suggests doing more with them. They're literally just using their powers to skip stones across a pond and the other one's like "what more could we do?" It feels real, just like how they begin using their powers to play pranks and later to impress girls.

The story itself is fairly predictable and turns out about as you'd expect. It ends (SPOILER ALERT) with basically an Akira-style finale that shifts POV from one device to another so often that the POV concept kind of falls apart.

But the story is believable and the characters are relatable. I think the movie's good throughout even when the POV concept falters, and it's a fun sort of take on what superheroes in a real world would be like.