Angst-ridden teenager with unlimited power....perfectly safe.
Chronicle is a 2012 sci-fi/action/coming of age film directed by Josh Trank focusing on three teenage boys who discover a mysterious object in a cave on the outskirts of town. They soon discover that exposure to the object has granted each of them telekinetic abilities. As they practice with their abilities, they get stronger with them, and learn to fly and protect themselves from harm. While they don't exactly become heroic pillars of justice with their powers, they mostly use them for random pranks and goofing around, as teen boys do.However, they soon discover that the gifts they have been granted may be drawing out their darker and more dangerous sides...For a movie with a similar plot, see AKIRA.
Abusive Parents: Richard Detmer, especially in his final scene.
Ambiguous Situation: It's unclear whether Steve's death was due to a freak but natural lightning bolt, or if Andrew was somehow responsible—and even if he was it's not clear if it was killing him in a rage or losing control of his power.
Bittersweet Ending: Matt defeats Andrew before he can cause any more damage, but several people have been killed, including Steve, and we are left with the lingering sense that Andrew's downfall could have been prevented.
Black Dude Dies First: Steve is killed 3/4 through the movie, becoming the first character to die. It's implied that Andrew did it, possibly unintentionally.
Andrew manages one of these while rampaging through Seattle.
Matt tries this as well, but apparently only manages to slow it down, and still gets hurt.
Bullying a Dragon: Picking on a kid with telekinetic powers ends as well as expected.
Cain and Abel: Played with. Andrew and Matt are cousins, not actual brothers, and Andrew is the younger sibling, but develop this dynamic in the finale. However, it is the Abel-like Matt who kills his cousin, but does it reluctantly and only as a very last resort.
Car Fu: During the final fight, Andrew hits Matt with a telekinetically thrown bus.
Caught On Tape: To be expected. It is implied that Andrew bought the first camera so his alcoholic father won't beat him for fear of this. It doesn't stop him and Andrew never does anything with the footage.
Character Development: Matt goes from standing around and telling Steve to be careful when Steve dives into the raging river to save the guy in the car Andrew crashed, to unhesitatingly rescuing Richard when Andrew drops him.
Chekhov's Gun: Andrew explains how his father used to be a firefighter. Andrew wears his father's old firefighting gear during a string of robberies, the last of which ends in a fiery explosion at a gas station.
The firefighting gear he was wearing also saved his life when the explosion happened. He was literally on fire after the explosion, and the heat-resistant clothing probably reduced the damage he received.
Chekhov's Skill: As they experiment with their powers, the boys learn they can create barriers around themselves. Andrew shows this to Matt by stabbing at his hand with a fork. The fork loses. This is the only skill which Matt shows an innate grasp of, and later on, when Andrew catches him with his defenses down and hurls a bus at him, this skill explains his survival.
Comes Great Responsibility: Double Subverted and Deconstructed. At first, the kids never think of using their powers for the common good, as opposed to shits and giggles. Then, after the incident with the trucker, Matt lays down the rules for the ethical use of superpowers (see Mind Over Manners below); the kids still don't use their powers to help people, but at least stop dicking around with them. Then, after Andrew loses his shit, Matt inadvertently becomes a true hero: although his motivation is entirely personal, he basically saves Seattle from destruction at the hands of his cousin.
Comic Book Movies Dont Use Code Names: Andrew refers to himself as an "Apex Predator" during his rampage, which is the closest any of the super powered characters get to using an alias.
Composite Character: Andrew shares several similarities with AKIRA's Tetsuo. Both being angsty teenagers that gain telekenetic powers and end up going mad with them. His personality also seems to be modeled after the profiles of real life high school murderers, e.g. the Columbine kids.
Andrew saves Steve's life in the airplane incident... only to accidentally (?) kill him in the thunderstorm scene.
Andrew styles himself an "apex predator". He is Impaled with Extreme Prejudice with a spear from a statue representing a tribal hunter. Really, he brought it onto himself.
Also of super villains, in that the film takes a closer look at what would drive someone to become one.
Decoy Protagonist: Soon after Andrew crosses the Moral Event Horizon, we switch the point of view to Matt. Possibly foreshadowed during Matt's "apology" scene with Casey as recorded by her camera, while Andrew is nowhere around. From then on, we repeatedly see things from Matt's perspective, setting him up as the kid with a conscience. This narratively puts him on a collision course with Andrew.
Despair Event Horizon: So, Andrew is now the king of the school, after the "illusions" and "magic tricks" he and Steve did at the talent show. Finally getting some real popularity, he attends a giant party at Steve's house, and ends up going with a girl for "private time." Sadly, between (most likely) nerves and too much alcohol, he loses his lunch. This sets off a chain reaction where his school image is actually WORSE than it used to be, with fresh fodder for teasing. After some telekinetic dentistry on school bullies, he gets yelled at by his cousin over the abuse of power. He THEN gets yelled at by his father, who had discovered his camera, who says that the other boys "aren't his friends", and that they were having fun at his expense instead of with him. Despite finally standing up to his father during the fight, that one part sinks in, and is the part that pushes Andrew into full misanthropy.
And just in case that wasn't enough, after Murphy's Law seems to have been fulfilled and Andrew is lying in a hospital bed, having likely caused his best friend's and possibly even his mother's deaths... his dad decides to Kick the Dog. Which turns out to be Bullying a Dragon. Cue the climax.
Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Andrew's mother is seemingly the only person he shows affection towards, and, conversely, the only person who seems to truly care for him.
After the talent show, Matt mentions that Andrew's expanding ego and hubris will be his downfall. He says it semi-jokingly, but its from that point on that things start going downhill.
Healthcare Motivation: Andrew beats up some thugs and steals money from a convenience store to pay for his mother's pills, an example of Type 2 of this trope.
Matt's recording at the party epitomizes the sense that Andrew's life might really start improving. Tragically, it's all downhill from there.
Why Richard, now that your son got himself in the hospital you're actually sad and finally realize you do love him? Oh, no you don't, you're just here to heap some more abuse on the pile.
How Do I Shot Web?: A good deal of the second act involves the trio learning how to use their telekinetic powers, as well as their application.
I Did What I Had to Do: Matt says this word for word after killing Andrew. Foreshadowed when Andrew himself dismisses Matt with a "You do what you have to do" when the latter is threatening to stop him from abusing his powers.
Insane Troll Logic: Richard wordlessly barges into Andrew's room and slaps him out of his seat in his first onscreen scene. He rationalizes it by screaming that Andrew should "open the door when I say so". This goes to demonstrate how Richard's drinking problem has rendered him increasingly detached from reality, and it foreshadows what he says to Andrew during the hospital scene.
Interface Screw: The strange object causes the camera to behave erratically.
In-Universe Camera: Used consistently throughout the movie. Editing is achieved by jumping from camera to camera, including security cameras and cellphones. Also, even though the cameras are in universe, they are still able to film sections of it like a typical third person movie by having Andrew use his powers to levitate various cameras around. It's implied that Andrew starts doing this unconsciously. Towards the end, he steals all the cameras and smartphones from every bystander in the Space Needle, for no real purpose other than to perhaps clinically document his rampage. He then seems to do the same thing with the cops, taking their dashboard and helmet cameras. Matt foreshadows/lampshades this early on when he says that the camera is like a barrier between Andrew and the world. Andrew's reply? "Maybe I want a barrier."
Jerkass: It doesn't take much to realize that Andrew's father, Richard, is simply using his son as an outlet for venting his stress and passing blame for his family's financial issues from himself. He even calls Andrew selfish for keeping an expensive camera (that was a gift from his cousin) from him (after said camera caught him searching through his son's room, clearly looking for money.) True, he does care deeply for his wife and wants to help get her the treatment she needs, but that raises the question as to why he can't stop spending money on alcohol rather than blaming everything on his son. The fact that when we first hear his voice he's established to be a belligerent alcoholic that is essentially responsible for Andrew's instability doesn't help either.
Richard: You're hoarding a five-hundred dollar camera from me while your mother is dying and every penny of mine goes to your school!
Andrew: You don't pay for public school, you idiot!
It's easy not to feel too bad when Andrew rips the bully's teeth out, kills the street thugs, or nearly murders his abusive father.
Jerk With A Heart Of Jerk: When Richard comes to see an injured Andrew in the hospital, he starts crying by his bedside. Seems like he actually feels bad about what happened to his son. We then find out he's crying because Andrew's mom died, and proceeds to blame Andrew for it.
Jitter Cam: Played straight for the first parts of the movie, but later averted due to Andrew keeping the camera steady and constantly running using his powers.
Karma Houdini: Richard. Even the death of his wife and his son doesn't cover the sheer volume of bad karma he had accumulated.
Kick the Dog: Andrew has a lot of moments where it counts - when he didn't think it was wrong to veer a car off the road; after he accidentally kills Steve; when he videotapes Steve's funeral; when he tears a spider limb-from-limb for no reason; and when he gives that Apex Predator speech ("A lion doesn't feel guilty when it eats a gazelle").
Kick the Son of a Bitch: When Andrew beats up his abusive father, when he tears Wayne the bully's teeth out, takes his revenge on the hoodlums, and when he tries to kill his father by dropping him from high in the air.
Kid Hero: Subverted and deconstructed. Matt is the only one of the boys who can be considered a true hero, and, not coincidentally, the only one to survive by the end.
Leave Me Alone: Delivered by Andrew, right before he blows the police surrounding him away.
Loners Are Freaks: More than a little implied with Andrew, especially before the incident that gave him powers.
Messianic Archetype: Steve comes the closest out of the three. He's also notably the first one to learn to fly.
Mind Over Manners: Matt tries to establish rules for the safe and ethical use of their powers after their telekinesis gets so strong that Andrew almost kills a redneck trucker.
Missing Trailer Scene: A couple of scenes that appear in the trailers did not show up in the actual movie, including one of Matt joking around with a topless Casey.
Mood Whiplash: The boys' usage of their powers goes from playful to tragic in quite a few scenes.
Mundane Utility: All over the place, including Steve floating food to his mouth, Andrew doing magic tricks, Andrew operating his camera telekinetically (even as Matt and Steve keep on using their hands for this,) and Andrew moving puddles out of his path.
Nice Guy: Apart from some of the Super Dickery, Steve is the one genuinely affable character in the film, from start to finish.
Nigh Invulnerability: The boys learn to create a telekinetic "barrier" around themselves, protecting them from physical attack. Emphasis on the "nigh" in this case, though; all three are injured at one point or another in the movie by things they didn't see coming.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Steve is a genuinely nice guy who befriends Andrew, and even goes flying in a thunderstorm to try to talk him down after he's been embarrassed. This results in Steve getting killed.
Not So Stoic: Pothead pseudo-philosopher with hints of a superiority complex, Matt steadily starts showing real emotion in response to Andrew's Face Heel Turn until he's sobbing uncontrollably moments before killing Andrew.
Not the Fall That Kills You: Averted. Matt noticeably uses his telekinesis to halt the falling Richard before catching him.
Not Using the Z Word: The kids never compare themselves to, say, Peter Parker or the Fantastic Four, and no one uses the words "superpower" or "superhero", as if comic books simply don't exist in this universe. Considering the boys have to look up "telekinesis" in the dictionary before they can put a name on "the thing we can do where we move stuff with our minds", maybe this is exactly the case.
Reality Ensues/Deconstruction: The whole film is this to Spider-Man and other teen superheroes. In that story, the angsty teenage outcast who gets superpowers winds up learning about his great responsibility and heroically fighting all manner of dastardly evil. Andrew, however, acts exactly like one would expect an angsty teenage outcast to act when given superpowers. It doesn't help that instead of an Uncle Ben, Andrew is stuck with an abusive, raging alchoholic for a parental figure.
Reed Richards Is Useless: Subverted at the end. Matt, the only surviving character with superpowers states he's going to use them to help people. Previously, the characters just used it for fun or self-gain.
Self-Made Orphan: Subverted. Andrew almost succeeds in killing his father, but, as he falls from a great height, he is rescued by Matt.
Sequel Hook: There are subtle hints that the government is not unaware of the source of the boys' powers, and Matt promises to "find out what happened." Also somebody had to collect all that footage and splice it together. And who else do you think would have gone to all the trouble to dig up Andrew's first camera, that got buried with the meteorite/artifact?. By the way, a sequel is confirmed as being in the works.
Shoo Out the Clowns: Steve is the most consistently easy-going and friendly character in the movie, who is also arguably the most laid-back about his powers. Interestingly, it is with his death that things go seriously down-hill and Andrew's Start of Darkness begins in earnest.
Spiritual Successor: More than a few reviewers have pointed out how the film draws on similar elements and themes from Stephen King's Carrie
Stalking Is Love: When Matt confesses to stalking Casey, she is definitely more turned on than creeped out. It's somewhat lampshaded when Matt chuckles and admits he shouldn't have used the word 'stalking'. More likely it was his own awkward way of admitting to having a crush on her.
Start of Darkness: The movie, contrary to the marketing, is told from Andrew's perspective. You can blame it on his father, too.
Super Hero Origin: By the end of the film, Matt has experienced a My Greatest Failure (having to kill his cousin in order to save a lot of other people's lives), is motivated by that experience to learn more about the origin and nature of his powers, and is in Tibet, which is basically Memetic Dagobah for budding superheroes.
Superpower Lottery: Played with. All of the boys get identical powers (very broadly implemented telekinesis), but their degrees of mastery varies.
Teens Are Monsters: At first, some teens are shown to be bullies, hoodlums, or simply inconsiderate assholes, but all of this is within normal limits. Then, Andrew loses his shit, and this trope is set loose.
The Tooth Hurts: A bully gets a few teeth telekinetically ripped out. Shortly after it happens, the audience is treated to a detailed explanation of how it was done, up to and including a mention about how two of the teeth were accidentally sliced in half when they came out.
Tragedy: An excellent example of a modern tragedy. Lampshaded by Matt's comment about "hubris".
Trailers Always Spoil: The entire second half of the trailer does all it can to give away Andrew's Face Heel Turn, which doesn't really set in until more than halfway through the movie.
Vomit Discretion Shot: When Andrew pukes for the first time, we don't see the process, although we do see the icky aftermath. When he does it again near the end of the movie, it is pretty much a Vomit Indiscretion Shot.
What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: Andrew's dark descent and ultimate rampage are heavily reminiscent of the way most kids who bring guns to school are pushed, except on a much grander scale.
What the Hell, Hero?: Matt keeps calling Andrew out on every major Kick the Dog moment he does, from the time he veered a car off the road (and didn't think it was wrong), to killing Steve and bringing his camera to the funeral.
With Great Power Comes Great Perks: Could possibly be The Movie of the trope. After three high-school guys are given telekinetic powers by a mysterious artifact hidden at the bottom of a crater, they mainly use their newfound abilities to waste time in increasingly spectacular ways, from playing pranks on customers at a department store, to playing football several thousand feet off the ground. Unfortunately, a very nasty combination of Abusive Parents and bullying at school eventually turns one of them into a supervillain.
Worf Had The Flu: Andrew is the strongest out of the three boys, but failed to take out Matt in the climax- though it should have been pretty easy considering the level of control he has over his powers - and was easily killed by him instead. He had just emerged from a coma, was suffering from severe burn wounds and probably also heavily doped up on painkillers.
Yank the Dog's Chain: After the talent show, Andrew's popularity with his schoolmates skyrockets. Yet, he manages to royally screw this up and become even more of a laughingstock in the same night.
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