Project Almanac

By: Robert Murphy

Time travel has been a concept that was a bit over done in the past, movies and science fiction shows that included this type of event were a dime a dozen but in recent years it has certainly slowed down, aside from the continuing exploits of Doctor Who and the not so old movie Looper. Project Almanac takes a more unique approach to the idea though than I have seen in the past few years when young David Raskin (Jonny Weston) stumbles upon an old experiment left by his late scientist father in his basement. The plans he finds are for a time machine of sorts, the idea being based around the theory of temporal relocation or some such nonsense that I really couldn't follow in the story. Irregardless though the plans lead David and his friends, the also brilliant Adam (Allen Evangelista) and the dumpy "player" Quinn (Sam Lerner), to go out and make the time machine and see if it works. The whole thing of course being captured by David's younger sister Christina (Virginia Gardner) for the found footage action you get for most of the film. 

Now, I have no problem with the found footage style of movies because they do have their place in the world, End of Watch being one of the movies that proves it works as well as a handful of horror movies. But, the idea that everyone in the current generation carries around a video camera wherever they go and they use it in ever day situations is going a little too far. Project Almanac is a film much like the 2012 film Chronicle where a group of friends stumble on an alien sort of artifact that gives them super powers except these guys have found a time machine. The idea is interesting but why does it have to be a found footage sort of movie, at least the kid in Chronicle had an excuse, he was lonely with no friends and so he had a video camera for something to do, something to talk to. This movie doesn't have that angle to it and what's worse is the video camera becomes a constant source of material for elements in the story. My point being that while digging around their dad's old stuff, David and Christina find a video camera that reveals David at his 7th birthday party but looking the way he does in the present, showing how he eventually time travels there. This comes up at the end of the movie as well, the most confusing point for me by the way considering David all of a sudden acts like he can see the future and there are now two video cameras instead of one in the attic. 

As for the story, things are very cut and dry and play out like a typical time travel movie does which is sad for the intriguing premise you start out with. The team struggles to get the time travel machine to work for the first portion of the film and they don't get it to work until they borrow the popular girls car, Jessie (Sofia Black D'Elia), without asking to power the machine. It just so happens that she has a crush on the nerdy David, go figure right? She joins the group right as they get the machine to work and they all travel together. This part of the story is pretty light and fun, they all discuss going back to kill Hitler, big joke there but ultimately they use the machine to do things like get back at bullies and help Quinn not fail his senior year which I actually admired. They also end up fixing the lottery and going to a huge concert as well for a great bit of fun and enjoyment but things begin to become predictable from here.

David fails at a moment to get close to the obviously in love Jessie at the concert and in order to fix it he goes back in time alone. This even somehow causes their schools basketball team to lose the championship.....oh and it also causes a huge plane crash that kills 77 people. It's a drastic jump to say the least, sure the butterfly effect teaches us not to change things in the past but come on this is going overboard. Once again, David goes back to fix things alone but the ripple is made and only bad things continue to happen from here, straight out of a classic time travel movie or even The Butterfly Affect and it made me want to stop watching almost instantly. 

What little of Project Almanac that I didn't include is honestly just a hormone ride for male viewers to sit through. It's not so bad for David to want to fix things by going back to that one moment and take his shot but if she really likes him and he did something about it then he wouldn't have had to time travel but he does and the nerdy guy gets a brief win. Then the events at the concert leave you with a blurry haze of half naked girls in wet clothes, short shorts or no clothes in some cases. This being a bit odd seeing as it's a girl filming most of the movie allegedly and makes you question the whole thing. You can almost smell the influence of Michael Bay all over it though. 

In the end, Project Almanac is just another found footage disaster to add on top of the many that came before it. David and his friends start out on decent footing but the decent into cliche territory with the ripple effect theory. Then again, you did just sit through a movie about a super smart teenager finding all the parts for a time machine in the basement of his super genius dead father's house so what did we really expect?

Good:

- Starts off with an interesting premise

- A few moments where the use of time travel wasn't so cliche

Bad:

- Another lack luster found footage movie

- The story falls apart quickly with many ridiculous time travel cliches

- Playing into some teen mellow drama

- The ending makes absolutely no sense

Scully Rating: 3.0 out of 10