Special effects in ‘Chronicle’ make it one of the year’s best so far

The weekend box office's top-grossing film, "Chronicle," has captured the attention of moviegoers nationwide.

Featuring a cast of relatively unknown and inexperienced actors, "Chronicle" relies heavily on its outstanding special effects and tantalizing storyline to become one of the year's most entertaining flicks to date.

The story begins with outcast Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan) filming his morose and unfortunate life. Detmer's mother is bedridden with a chronic illness, and his father is an abusive and temperamental drunk.

Adding to his sorrows, Detmer has only one friend, his cousin Alex Russell (Matt Garetty), and even that relationship is strained by Detmer's antisocial habits.

Detmer occupies his time by filming his every move, and this brings him even more unwanted attention at school. Bullies are quick to pick on the "kid with the camera" and less abrasive personalities are simply put off by Detmer's hobby.

Sensing that his cousin's self-esteem is at an all-time low, Russell invites Detmer to a party where he hopes he will make friends and find an escape from his home life.

At the party, Detmer is further ridiculed and eventually bullied by an overly aggressive jock for "filming his girl."

And just as Detmer's spirits seem permanently broken, the story makes a turn.

In the woods bordering the party, Russell and his friend, Steve Montgomery (Michael B. Jordan), find a large hole emitting strange noises, and they invite Detmer to investigate with them.

Once inside the hole, the three young men walk down a cave to find the cause of the noise – a large crystal-like structure unlike anything they had ever seen.

The cave begins trembling and shrieking as they approach the formation, and Montgomery collapses just as the scene goes black.

Here the director leaves some ends up to the viewer. What happened to the boys is unknown even by the movie's conclusion, but one thing is certain: it changed their lives.

After being exposed to the creation in the cave, each of the three boys possesses a telekinetic ability that sees him perform tasks from bending forks, playing practical jokes and even flying to school.

But, with great power comes great responsibility, and Detmer, who is finally beginning to lead a normal social life with his now-superhero friends, breaks under the temptation to use his power to do wrong.

This is the most interesting aspect of the movie for me, as his evil motivations waver between justified and completely unnecessary.

In one instance, he uses his powers to steal money to pay for his mother's medicine, and in another he causes a vehicle to skid off the road into a lake.

This disparity serves to illustrate how unstable he is and how his past turned him into a candidate for destruction. In this way, the movie uses Detmer's character to show how devastating great power can be when it falls into the wrong hands.

While this isn't a unique idea on the surface, the movie's execution of it was certainly fresh. The special effects were incredible, and the boys' actions were stunning to watch, making the film incredibly entertaining from start to finish.

"Chronicle" brings all the necessary ingredients for a great film to the table in a fresh and entertaining context, and I highly recommend it for fans of special effects and action films.