100 Greatest Superhero Stories Ever
By Steve Lam
Image Courtesy of 20th Century Fox
#94. Chronicle
Medium
Live-Action Feature Film
Release Date
February 3, 2012
Credits
Director: Josh Trank
Writer: Max Landis
Cast: Dane DeHaan as Andrew Detmer, Alex Russell as Matt Garetty, Michael B. Jordan as Steve Montgomery, Michael Kelly as richard Detmer, Ashley Hinshaw as Casey Letter, Anna Wood as Monica, Bo Petersen as Karen Detmer
The Reason It’s Great
By the mid-2000s, found-footage films were already passe and cliched. However, Chronicle flipped the genre on its head by using that style to tell a superhero origin story—or, should we say, a supervillain origin story.
The uniqueness was only one part of its success. Max Landis, who was well-versed in comics, created a compelling group of characters which included a totally sympathetic underdog in Dane DeHaan’s Andrew Detmer. We saw the poor guy’s torturous high school days which reminded us of our own. And we sort of reveled and lived through him when he fought back the bullies.
However, we saw how great power can quickly corrupt someone who originally had good intentions. Andrew is soon seen as a freak and his years of abuse come to the surface as pure hate and vengeance. It was now up to his best friends to put a stop to him.
Molded from a similar narrative that was found in the pre-Crisis Superboy / Lex Luthor relationship, Chronicle was a slick film that revitalized the found-footage genre and also created one of the greatest character arcs for a super villain.