Title – Project Almanac (2014)
Director – Dean Israelite (feature debut)
Cast – Jonny Weston, Sofia Black-D’Elia, Sam Lerner, Virginia Gardner, Allen Evangelista
Plot – When a bunch of high schoolers led by scientific wiz David (Weston) discover the blueprints for a time machine they quickly learn that the laws of time travel are not to be messed with.
“I told you we couldn’t die”
Review by Eddie on 5/10/2015
Handheld found footage has seeped into many a genre of the last decade and while horror has been its main target we can now ad high school time travellers to that ever growing list with Dean Israellite’s potentially great yet un-exciting Project Almanac.
A product of the MTV branch of films, Project Almanac wants to be a hip time travelling jaunt for the Beats By Dr. Dre generation yet what we get is a horribly dull trip into the pitfalls of messing with time and space that starts off with a potentially great idea only to squander it on an uninvolving love plot, trips to concerts that go on far too long and a lot of annoying LOUD yelling from our team of freakishly adept scientific teens that luckily have parents who don’t seem to care about them tinkering away on experiments in the basement.
With a squandered story another man hindrance to Almanac’s chances of successes is its telling centred around the found footage/handheld style of filmmaking. As is well known, for these type of films to work there has to be a reason for people to be filming quite literally all the time and Almanac just becomes a frustration with there being no real reason a lot of the time for filming to be taking place. One can’t help but feel this film could’ve benefited from a more straightforward telling that would’ve allowed for some more involving set pieces and less jarring footage and edits.
The team of brainy high schooler’s we’re asked to spend 100 minutes with aren’t particularly fantastic either and in the end fit squarely in the sadly stereotypical genre tropes of nerds, babes and losers. During the film’s opening stanza there seems to be a chance our lead David played by Jonny Weston could carry the film but as the film progresses more to a tale of love, David quickly becomes a frustration.
For such a brainy group you’d have thought that at least one of the five travellers had seen any number of cautionary tales about the pitfalls of time travel yet low and behold Project Almanac goes down the route that we expected all along and while there are interesting moments in this yarn not enough of them gel to create something that is memorable or even that well made.
1 and a half slowly floating cans of Red Bull out of 5
Mmmmmm Red Bull
Red Bull gives you wiiiiiiiiiiiings!
Man if only I knew I could sue them for false advertisement – woulda been the quickest way to make millions known to man.
E
I also reviewed this one…slightly enjoyed it more than you, mainly because its pretty much what id do if i had a time machine. But it mostly sucks
Yeh it had a few moments man and initially I thought it was going somewhere pretty interesting but it died off badly.
E
I’ll be sticking to Looper thank you very much.
I think that is a wise call!
E
I got motion sickness during this film..there were points in time I had to actually close my eyes for periods.. This type of filming also makes you truly miss 1/2 the film as it’s showing the ground for that time! hahahaha good premise..sadly..agreed on your rating completely..:)
Yeah found footage isn’t particulary easy to watch most of the time sadly!
E
Totally agree, they filmed this wrong. The story is compelling though, romantic trips aside. I’d say Butterfly Effect is better for a similar story. Good review though 😉
Yeh Butterfly Effect was a great watch and kept you engaged the whole way through. Shame Almanac didn’t go on with its promise and in the end this was utterly missable.
E
Haha true.. and I didn’t hate Almanac as much you I guess. Maybe 2.5 / 5
Your a kind man Dan ha.
E
hahaha
I was so looking forward to this movie before it came out, but just the trailers were enough to spot that – as you put it so well – this wasn’t worth the time!
Yeh it was a real let down! Shame as the idea was pretty decent.
E
This is an example of how time travel is done badly. Doesn’t really make much sense and gets far too caught up in it’s own story to realise that none of it would work. I’m too geeky to watch a film like this!
Not worth the time. Better off reliving back to the future ha.
E