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Three teenage boys get superpowers in Chronicle. + Enlarge

Perhaps Chronicle will be the death knell for this whole found-footage genre of moviemaking. It does things with the genre other movies of its ilk have not, and moves the genre closer to standard moviemaking. But sadly the genre will live on.

It’s a style that operates on a simple formula: take unknown actors and actresses (low overhead), shoot the movie via cameras held by the characters (we live in a narcissistic age; everyone documents their mundane lives via Facebook, Twitter or blogs), add a little marketing magic dust and then collect a big opening-weekend payday.

The roots of the genre are traceable back to the early days of cinema, but became recognizable to the general public via 1999’s The Blair Witch Project. It exploded with the release of 2007’s Paranormal Activity. Since then, the genre has offered some hits and mostly misses, but following the formula outlined above, it usually makes money which is why Hollywood keeps coming back for more. (Yes, Paranormal Activity 4 is due for an October release.)

Chronicle is not a bad movie in the genre; just more of a disappointment. The movie has an interesting premise that doesn’t need the found-footage gimmick. Director Josh Trank and screenwriter Max Landis ease into the film. (And yes, Landis is the son of John Landis, who directed classic American comedies such as The Blues Brothers and Trading Places.) Three Seattle teen boys — the basketcase Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan), the brain Matt Garetty (Alex Russell), who is Andrew’s cousin, and the prince Steve Montgomery (Michael B. Jordan) — discover a hole in the ground outside of a too-elaborate-for-teens barn party. Inside the hole? A glowing orb of some sort which bestows the teens with telekinetic powers.

Great power, great responsibility and all that, right? Well, not quite. The power is like a muscle so the boys exercise it first: levitating Legos or blowing up the skirts of high school girls. The best scenes are when the three fly — from clumsily discovering that power to a game of catch in the clouds — which provides the movie’s best thrills.

So good premise: How would three teenage boys use newly discovered superpowers? Travel the world? That’s mentioned, but ultimately the boys decide on using the powers so Andrew can become popular and lose his virginity. Not bad for a comedy, but Chronicle isn’t a comedy. This is where the movie heads downward. Andrew comes from a home where mommy is dying and daddy is a violent alcoholic, so after suffering some teenage embarrassment, Andrew starts talking about apex predators and flexing his newfound powers to the detriment of Steve, then daddy, then Seattle and then Matt. (The fact that weakling Andrew is the bad egg needs no foreshadowing, but Chronicle offers it early in the film with a vehicle wreck caused by Andrew. Of course, Andrew films this while Steve and Matt rescue the driver.)

Chronicle ends in silly mayhem. After a lot of destruction in downtown Seattle shown through surveillance cameras and news reports, there’s one character left standing. And he does the smart thing: He uses his powers to visit the world and have a good time. Too bad those scenes are only a coda to a dissatisfying movie that held so much promise.

Chronicle does improve the found-footage genre on one point: Since Andrew can levitate his camera, Chronicle has perfectly framed and shot scenes when necessary, and there’s not too much jerky footage à la Cloverfield. Still, is a found-footage movie worthy of praise just because it has some clean shots? Certainly not. And Chronicle is just another movie in the genre that will make a fast buck and then disappear while Hollywood dreams up its next found-footage lottery ticket.

RATING: 1 star