I refer to it as a niche movie because it targets two main groups; indie film movie fans who will appreciate the "amateur footage" feel it has and comic book fans who will appreciate the complexities of superpowers without the spandex.

Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan) is what most would call a complete social outcast. He is not only unable to make friends due to his awkwardness but his home troubles make it impossible to connect with anyone. His mother is slowly dying at home and his alcoholic father is struggling to keep her alive with whatever resources he can muster. In between struggling to keep Andrew's mother alive, his father regularly spends quality time with his son by bullying and beating him to release his frustrations.

Andrew's only pseudo-friend is his cousin Matt Garetty (Alex Russel) who seems to feel more sorry for him than concerned. His concern is raised when Andrew gets a camera and begins chronicling his life. In Matt's opinion that is only going to make him even more of an outcast and it does.

While at a party they meet the charismatic Steve Montgomery (Michael B. Jordan) who leads them on an adventure down a mysterious hole where they discover a strange glowing crystal with signs of life. The crystal seems to do something to them which causes them migraines and nose bleeding followed by a black out. When they wake up they discover they have telekinetic abilities.

Like all teenage boys blessed with super powers, their first instinct is to put on costumes and save the city. Just kidding! The three use their abilities to play pranks and dazzle their friends with magic shows. The most interesting thing is that the powers and learning the limits of them bonds them to each other.

It makes them a brotherhood so strong that Steve's girlfriend shows concern over how much time they spend together.

It isn't long before Andrew's social outcast nature begins to nag him. He cannot consolidate his new status as an accepted individual with his lifelong position as an outsider. It eats at him to the point where he begins to exercise his power for dominance rather than whimsy.
Understandably, he is a lifelong target of bullies and finally has the power to fight back. Herein lies the real question of the movie. If you had the power to do everything you wish you had the power to do, what would you do with it?

Even with the amateur camera vista the movie still manages to pull off incredible gripping scenes such as emotional family drama, the coming out of the social outcast as "accepted", a little romance, and an epic final battle for supremacy.

Most of the movie scenes are cut to maintain consistency of a single camera being turned on and off. This movie genre, called 'found footage' was made famous by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez with The Blair Witch Project and later used with almost as great impact in Matt Reeve's Cloverfield.

Josh Trank's contribution to this form of low budget story telling is very involving for the inquisitive mind out for a good long existential pondering.

By Andrew Onyango