What are you capable of?

Perhaps no other phrase in the comic book genre applies to daily life as much as Spider-Man's famous, "With great power comes great responsibility." Such a phrase has guided Spider-Man throughout his career, but occasionally the thought comes up: what if he didn't follow this famous mantra, and instead used his powers for selfish reasons? The movie Chronicle explores what would happen if one would use his super powers selfishly.

Filmed documentary style, the movie tells the story of three high school boys who encounter some sort of alien ship or something alien, and then acquire superhuman powers of telekinesis. Predictably, things spiral out of control for the three. (I won't say too much more as not to ruin it for you)

I really enjoyed the first half of this film; getting to know the characters via a hand held camera as they fooled around with their newly acquired powers. Chronicle pretty much lost me during the back half of the movie , however, when it began to resemble something out of the movie Carrie.  It just kept getting darker and darker. 

With that said though Chronicle puts a real world spin on what has always been the most interesting aspect of the superhero/supervillain divide, how these individuals came to be. What would you do  if you suddenly got superpowers? Would you use it for good or evil? Would you get addicted to the power and feel everyone is beneath you or would you help people and make the world better?

Overall, even though Chronicle is one of those shaky "Found footage" movies, it does avoid many of the pitfalls of those type of films by having awesome special effects, exceptional writing and impressive acting. If you like a good superhero movie, then I highly recommend this movie. If nothing else it forces you to think about what the consequences of having super powers might be and how you would use those powers... Remember villains don't start out evil.