Principal Cast Dane DeHaan -- Andrew Detmer Alex Russell -- Matt Garetty Michael B. Jordan -- Steve Montgomery Michael Kelly -- Richard Detmer Ashley Hinshaw -- Casey Letter Bo Petersen -- Karen Detmer Anna Wood -- Monica Ratings Ratings are based on Rick's four star system. One star - the commercials are more entertaining than the viewing. Two stars - watch if you have nothing better to do. Three stars - good solid entertainment. Four stars - you never dreamed viewing could be this good.

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Chronicle is a fun movie about teens with superpowers. It doesn't take itself too seriously, but it does take itself seriously enough. It is in the genre of found footage (remember The Blair Witch Project?), and also in the genre of teens who love making movies (remember Super 8?), but is better than either of those.

I was glad to see a movie where the smart kid is not the one who is socially inept, where the Black kid is interested in going into politics, and where the abused kid is likable without being pathetic. All the kids are interested in sex and alcohol, but sex and alcohol is not all they are interested in. They all have a life.

The special effects are well done without being so over-the-top you forget who the characters are and what they are doing, like in the Transformer movies.

This is one of the few sf movies of recent years that is not a sequel, nor based on a comic book, nor adapted from a YA novel.

The title is unfortunate. I have trouble remembering it, even though I liked the movie a lot. Can you think of any movie that couldn't reasonably be named Chronicle? The title gives absolutely no hook to the story.

The two young men who created Chronicle have done work in television and short films, but this is their first feature. Max is the son of major Hollywood director John Landis, which may explain how they were able to raise the twelve million the movie reportedly cost. It has already made back many times that amount and is still going strong.

Rick Norwood is a mathematician and writer whose small press publishing house, Manuscript Press, has published books by Hal Clement, R.A. Lafferty, and Hal Foster. He is also the editor of Comics Revue Monthly, which publishes such classic comic strips as Flash Gordon, Sky Masters, Modesty Blaise, Tarzan, Odd Bodkins, Casey Ruggles, The Phantom, Gasoline Alley, Krazy Kat, Alley Oop, Little Orphan Annie, Barnaby, Buz Sawyer, and Steve Canyon. Visit his web site at comicsrevue.com.