I just watched chronicle and now I'm really angry

I'm sorry. I don't mean to make everything a moan. It's just in so frequently disappointed by things. Often everything just seems to get the basics wrong. I was going to call this one 'stupid intelligent films'. I don't know where else to start with chronicle.

I'm just so annoyed at all these films that just get the basics wrong.

It acted like it was the first found footage film ever. The lengths it goes to to establish that this is found footage is ludicrous, every scene at the start had 'oh, so you've got a new camera' as an intro line. It goes so far that I wonder if it's even a comment on found footage films.

To its credit, the protag Andrew says he finds it comforting because it puts a barrier between him and the world (despite the fact that he already seems entirely alone). So it starts out as a dramatic, as well as practical, technique. Like district 9, it wants to do away with the shaky cam stuff, but it does it by bending the rules hilariously far, til the point where they interfere with the plot.

So is this some sort of point about found footage movies in here? With Andrew's line 'I'm trying to put a barrier', is he talking about how FF films actually make cinema less believable, not more? Is it a comment on voyerism and technology, how what we think is bringing us together is not, like all those idiots who watch gigs on a their phone while they record it for the future instead of living in it in the moment. It lets things which would not be remarkable in cinema, like cars levitating, become interesting again, because we see it from first person. So I'm not convinced it's a deliberate comment on found footage. It's just enough to make me wish it was.

The fact that the only female character only existed in order to hold a second camera is jaw-droppingly poor. And she had to suffer the whole 'stalking pays off' thing with Matt, in that she begins to like him simply because he is persistent. and then he seems to leave her, and go travelling, cause, "I love you Bro." It's like the worst of both worlds; we get the shallow love interest, which then doesn't go anywhere. Better to ditch it entirely.

There isn't a story as such, other than the 'damaged underdog ends up misusing power when s/he gets it', which is a good story; I intend to use it myself one day. The treatment is fairly realistic I suppose, of how one can retreat back into one's shell; but against a background of recent disaster-porn scenarios, I can't help wishing there was something to overcome that was successful. I'm so sick of the 'here's an opportunity, let's watch people screw it up' plots, especially in sci-fi. I had hoped it would be like a proper superhero origin story, but an original setting with a fresh angle and a bit of realism. I don't want some depressing story about how you can't escape your upbringing, that once you're ruined, you're ruined forever. I totally accept that this is a preference thing, but it seems a real shame to tell this story as, as Primo Levi said, 'troubles overcome are good to tell'. Wouldn't it be nice if there was something to achieve, rather than social acceptance? And social acceptance could be a byproduct/subplot to the main thing?

Overall, it felt more like The Explorers than Primer, with an ending that felt totally Akira.

Think that sums it up.