Project Almanac

This film seems to have really divided people on here but on the whole I really liked it.

Teenager David Raskin (A very good Jonny Weston, an actor clearly with a good career ahead of him) is a bit of a brain box at school. His best friend is an even bigger nerd than he is and not as brainy and of course he fancies one of the it girls, while his sister is being bullied by some others. Weston is a very good looking actor, so trying to pass him off as a science geek is really a bit of a stretch one of the films weakest flaws but one I was prepared to forgive. This group form an unlikely alliance when they discover via one of David's deceased Dad's experiments, they have invented time travel. They jump together and change various things in their recent past and also do some fairly typical teenage things like go and win the lottery. Someone on here was moaning saying people wouldn't do that, they would go back and see people they loved and so on - well I am fairly certain as a teenager I would do both.

Our lead character though cannot leave well enough alone and jumps once too often and the ripple effect begins to cause them problems.

Project Almanac is a found footage film and these normally alone will cause me not to watch them but I found the premise of this one intriguing enough to seek it out. It's helped by a reasonably good script which plays out like a good episode of the Twilight Zone but what really helps the film is the cast. Its pretty rare that a group of teenage actors should all be universally so good, but that is certainly the case here. Sofia Black-D'Elia who more recently starred in Born of War is especially good and one I predict big things for while Sam Lerner who plays the thankless role of the Annoying friend clearly has taken on board everything his actor father taught him. This really is a talented group of individuals.

The film reminded me of the 1980s cult film The Explorers and I found myself rooting for the hero towards the end because you wanted him to set everything right. I really enjoyed this film and stayed up really late when I was super tired to watch it. Thankfully I wasn't bored and I was with them until the end. Recommended, from me at least anyway.

I'm not going to include any spoilers. I enjoyed the story and found the cast appealing. It was an interesting idea with some good special effects. There were a couple of plot holes but there were also some funny nods to movies such as Back to the Future which I enjoyed. You remember the scene where Doc Brown is trying to get two electric cables to connect?

It reminded me a lot of the superb low-budget 'Primer' which covers some of the same ground. In that movie, some geekie guys accidentally discover time-travel and have to decide what to do with it. Also, Almanac had some good jokes, which many movies seem to leave out.

Seriously, did you see any jokes in Man of Steel? Sadly the shocking camera work ruined the whole experience.All the jumping about, whirling, juddering and flicking etc. It just made me feel ill.

And this is true of both the characters in the movie and the viewer. Well the latter should rather try to enjoy as much as possible. Because the science behind it all does not really mix well together. A problem that the movie is not alone with. Mingling with time and trying to make it plausible is almost impossible. Just a few have managed to get the "technical" things right or rather the things right that would seem logical.

But throw logic out of the window, because this is about teenagers. And while you get the obvious "what would you change, if you could" discussion, in the end it all boils down to personal advantage (mostly). And can you blame them? The twist at the end is kind of redundant, but it's there and better than the alternate endings that can be watched on the disc/special features. Enjoyable if you don't think too much

Found footage movies are often pretty predictable and sketchy, but project almanac isn't. Unlike other movies of this genre, the pace is kinda slow, which is appropriate for the story. When you build a time travel machine, it is normal that it takes multiple attempts before it works. Even though sometimes you may wonder why the characters are still filming their journey, it's not disturbing enough to prevent you from focusing on the plot, which is a good thing. There's also a good love story and some funny moments, in addition to a breath taking last act. I'd compare it to the Canadian movie Chronicles.

Overall you'll have a great time watching this movie, even more if you are familiar with this genre.

David Raskin (Jonny Weston) applies to MIT with the help of his friends Quinn Goldberg (Sam Lerner), Adam Le (Allen Evangelista), and his sister Christina Raskin (Virginia Gardner). He could only get a small partial scholarship and his mother is looking to sell their home to raise tuition money. While looking for his late father's experiments in the attic, David finds an old video of his 7th birthday but it has his older self in the video. He and his friends find parts of a time travel machine hidden in his basement. They reconstruct it and travel back in time with his crush Jessie Pierce (Sofia Black-D'Elia).

This uses the found footage idea and the shaky cam moves get tiresome. It adds nothing and has no real internal logic. The kids are all excited and hyper. Obviously, it's intended to inject energy into the movie. That also gets tiresome. The big turning point is Lollapalooza which only adds to the superficiality of the whole enterprise. The premise starts out well but the movie is a long slow downward slide. Its initial potential slowly fades away.