2012
83 minutes
rated PG-13
by Scott Mendelson
I've written a lot over the last couple years about how, if superhero films are going to survive, they are going to have to be able to be about something other than the generic tropes of superhero comic book adventures. Captain America excelled because it was a World War II period action drama, while Green Lantern mostly faltered because it wasn't about anything other than its own conventions. Chronicle (written by Max Landis and directed by Josh Trank) is a shining example of a powerful emotional tragedy that involves certain comic book conventions without really being about them. At heart, the picture is a fierce rebuttal of the now-cliche 'with great power comes a superior destiny' motif that has been central to the last ten years of big-budget fantasy pictures, both those based on comics and those based on young-adult fantasy novels. More than just a deconstruction of fantasy tropes, Chronicle is a thoughtful and empathetic story of three disparate teens who end up with special powers and how it does or does not change them.
