Chronicle (12A)

Starring: Dane DeHaan, Michael B Jordan, Alex Russell

Josh Trank's movie is about what happens when superpowers fall into the possession of people who aren't superheroes.

It has the sort of lo-fi integrity that helped make Cloverfield and Monsters unlikely hits. Three schoolfriends – bullied camera-obsessive Andrew (Dane DeHaan), his philosophical cousin Matt (Alex Russell) and campus alpha male Steve (Michael B Jordan) – stumble on a mysterious otherworldly source that endows them with telekinetic gifts. What's cute is the way Trank and writer Max Landis (both 26-year-olds) build the trio's realisation of their potential: first they joke around in supermarkets, then they move parked cars, and finally get to defy gravity itself. You'll believe they can fly!

The question is, do the boys have sufficient responsibility to handle these life-changing powers? The frolics of the first half are more enjoyable than the mayhem of the second, though Landis earns his spurs with an incisive portrayal of youthful angst and bereavement.