"Project Almanac" (2015)

The Trailer:

Director: Dean Israelite
Writer: Jason Pagan & Andrew Deutschman
Cast: Jonny Weston, Virginia Gardner, Sam Lerner, Allen Evangilista, & Sofia Black-D'Elia
Plot Summary: A group of friends— David Raskin (Jonny Weston), Christina Raskin (Virginia Gardner), Quinn Goldberg (Sam Lerner), and Adam Le (Allen Evangilista)—, after discovering footage that suggests time travel, create their own time travel machine. Over the many trials to perfect it's functioning they inadvertently bring an outsider into their group, David's crush, Jessie Pierce (Sofia Black-D'Elia), who eventually convinces them to discontinue their trials and go directly to testing out the device on themselves leading to a series of events that cause terrible changes they didn't foresee.

I absolutely love how the found footage idea is seeping into other genres, it's really quite lovely... NOT. *Sigh* When did found footage become the most innovative, original story-telling technique? I have absolutely no idea, but I'm not a fan. You know, it's not even that I don't like found footage— in some instances, the found footage aspects succeeds in adding a level of reality to a film—, but it's the shaky camera (that makes me nauseous) and the fact that it adds no depth to the film. Project Almanac could've just as easily been filmed in a regular film style and the story would've remained the same and probably would've been better relayed to us viewers. Plus the production seems a bit too polished to be found-footage, you know what I mean? Especially since the movie is supposed to have been filmed on an old camcorder from the early 2000's. Like really, the image is going to be super crystal clear? I don't think so. Plainly, there is no need for this movie to be found footage. No need other than the creators wanting to add some "freshness" to an overdone concept. Because, really, have we not had enough time travel movies? Don't mistake me, I appreciate a well crafted time travel movie, but this is just silly teenager, junk-food cinema. And not even good teenager junk-food cinema, mind you.

Adding to my dislike of the found-footage-thriller genre this movie places itself in, I have some other issues as well. Mostly with the story, the details, and the logic of the movie. The story itself of four friends, plus the crush of our protagonist, developing a time machine isn't all that interesting. In fact, it's a bit underwhelming. Again, since this time travel idea is not a new concept, we're fairly familiar with the formula of similar movies. It goes something like this: time travel machine is built, the builders go back in time to change things that will benefit themselves in the present, soon they realize that the small changes they made had disastrous effects on the present, now they must find a way to fix it. Actually there are a few templates a time travel movie could follow, but this is the most basic and overall accepted formula. Anyways, my point is that it's not a surprise when shit starts getting out of hand because of the changes they made in the past, which leaves little suspense for the movie to hang on. And instead of trying to create a more suspenseful sub-plot, we're fed a regurgitated teenage, boy meets girl romance. Ugh, why??? Out of all the things the movie could've been focused on— like why David traveled back to his 7th birthday party in the first place (the footage they found)— the writers chose to focus on the most mundane, boring, melodramatic teenage romance there ever was? What a fucking waste! I was annoyed as soon as I saw Sofia Black-D'Elia's pouty, perpetually-on-the-verge-of-tears face because I knew right then that this movie was going to turn into a sappy romance of David trying to impress Jessie Pierce with his time traveling abilities. And that's exactly what the movie turned into. And on top of that, none of the characters are well-developed or compelling, even. I wasn't interested in any of them. All their motives are simply chalked up to teenage naiveté, which by itself is just a superficial characteristic. Further, I was angry at David's lack of forethought. Like David, Christina, Quinn, and Adam were all for scientific experimentation to ensure the safety of themselves and anything else that might be affected by the time traveling. So they experimented with inanimate objects to see if 1) the time machine works and 2) what effects the time travel had on the object and/or time space continuum. Yet when pouty Jessie Pierce says hey we should forgo experiments on smaller living organisms and just go straight to us using the time machine, they abandon scientific method and just hope for the best. For me, a child of science, I can't accept this. Time travel, though it seems completely implausible right now, if it were possible, it would be necessary to consider all outcomes of it's use. So it seems unlikely that David, a seemingly smart kid (he got accepted into MIT) would know that and wouldn't be swayed by the charms of some stupid school crush. I just won't accept that and it angers me that that's what happened. Then there's a logic set up for how this whole time travel thing works in the realm of this movie, and yet that logic isn't consistently followed throughout the film thus creating some GAPING plot holes. I won't indulge on the plot holes as they would obviously give away too much, but let's just say that with the logic that is set up, this movie shouldn't have happened.

While it seems like I liked nothing about Project Almanac, I do appreciate some things though I wish they had been further explored. Example: the friendship. I am all for movies and books and any other story-telling mediums out there that are centered around a group of friends going through a life-changing experience together. There's a lot of emotions that can be pulled from that: All the trust, love, compassion, fear, anger, etc. that can happen in a situation like this. Plus the fact that no matter what happens to this group of friends in the future, they will always have this shared moment between them that they can look back on in nostalgia and reminiscence. All of that makes for a textured story, yet Project Almanac barely delves into any of that. All we are told is that these people are friends and that's it, we just have to accept that. We're never given any details about their friendship, about what holds them together, about their loyalty to one another. Nothing and it's disappointing. Despite all that, I do appreciate that the friendship is at the center of the movie, and though it is never fully explored, we do get a sense that this group would do anything to protect each other. Also, though I did mention this as a negative earlier, the production is pretty good. For a found footage, it's too good, but just as an overall piece of work it's good. Also I really like all the various settings: the school, the house, Lollapalooza, the streets in general. It all lends itself to the feeling that this takes place in a real town with real people and I can respect that.

Ultimately Project Almanac is a solid two star movie, more stars if you could get over some of the things that I couldn't. It's okay, nothing special, definitely nothing that anybody is going to remember a few months after they watch it. And actually the more I think and write about it, the less I like it so I'm just going to stop writing about it now to keep intact the little liking that I do have for the movie. Would I watch it again? Only to have as background noise.