Review of Project Almanac (2015) by Sue J — 03 Mar 2015

The 2015 science fiction thriller film Project Almanac is a found footage movie in the genre of The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, Cloverfield, Chronicle and Project X to name a few. It is directed by first time director Dean Israelite and is written directly for the screen by Harry Pagan and Andrew Deutschman, with some helpful (?) hints from executive producer Michael Bay. His handiwork is visible during many scenes throughout the film. There are some differences between this particular film and the others mentioned in that this movie has a homemade time machine that allows the teenagers that star in it to try to manipulate the past and improve their social status and any other things that interest teenagers.

The weak plot and storyline concerns a seventeen-year-old high school senior David Raskin (played at best as possible with the weak dialog he is handed by Jonny Weston), who is an inventor like his father and has been accepted to MIT. He, unfortunately, is not able to afford attendance, but his mother who is determined that her son should attend decides to sell the house to send him there. At this news, he asks his sister Christina (Virginia Gardner) and his friends Adam Le (Allen Evangelista) and Quinn Goldbert (Sam Lerner) to go through his father's belongings hoping to find something that can be used to get a scholarship for him and save selling the house.

What they find is an old video camera with a recording of his seventh birthday, which happened just before his father died in a car accident, where he sees his 17-year-old self in a mirror. Finding blueprints for a temporal relocation device (for those who do not know, what that is, it's a time machine!) that his father was developing for the military, the group uses it and some other things to build a time machine that actually works. The machine requires a lot of energy to work properly and everything that they used did not help, so they eventually realized that they needed a bigger energy source like a car battery. Using one from the car of the girl David has a huge crush on, Jessie Pierce (Sofia Black D'Elia), they manage to charge the machine, but Jessie catches them and becomes a part of the team.

David, Jessie, Christina, Adam, and Quinn eventually travel back in time to just the day before and break into Quinn's house, where they draw a smiley face on the back of the sleeping Quinn's neck (which simultaneously appears on the back of the visiting Quinn's neck). Seeing that it does work, they all agree to use it for their own personal gain and always when they are together, not separately or individually. Adam wins the lottery; Quinn passes his chemistry test and thus secures his college future; and they all go back three months to Lollapalooza where David stalls and does not tell Jessie how he feels about her. He breaks the agreement and goes travels back in time to fix it, leading to the future where he and Jessie are a couple. This unfortunately changes the past and causes a ripple effect where the star basketball payer breaks his leg and the school loses the championship. Also, a plan piloted by a classmate's father crashes and 72 people die. Distraught by the changes he has caused, David goes back alone again trying to prevent the accident to the basketball player and stop the plane crash and subsequently when he returns to the future, his friend Adam is in the hospital in serious condition after being run over by a car.

At this juncture, David admits to a confrontative Jessie what he has done and they both travel back to fix his mistakes and save Adam, but Jessie who accidentally runs into her past self is erased from the timeline, causing even more problems in the future. David goes back to where this all seems to have happened...to his seventh birthday party and stop the machine from ever being made, but he is prevented from doing so by the police, who believe he is involved if not responsible for Jessie's disappearance. Escaping capture, he uses a hydrogen canister to return to the basement of his own home where he meets his father Ben, who learns that David has completed the machine. The blueprints and vital circuits are destroyed, and David is removed from this timeline in 2004. But the camera records the whole episode and back to the future, both David and Christina once again are rummaging through their father's belongings and discover the camera with the footage of them from minutes before. Knowing what is going to happen in the future, the film ends with David telling Jessie that they are about to change the world.

Besides the actors already mentioned, the supporting cast who played their roles well were Virginia Gardner as Christina Raskin, Amy Landecker as Kathy Raskin, the mother, Gary Weeks as Ben Raskin , the father, and Michelle DeFraites, Patrick Johnson, Gary Grubbs, and Atlas Genius and Imagine Dragons as themselves performing at Lollapalooza where their scenes were film for this movie.

The film is okay as this genre goes, which has probably worn itself out. But if you have seen the movie Chronicle, then this film will be a disappointment. It lacks some of the childhood or teenage happiness/joy that Chronicle portrayed. As smart as the protagonist is supposed to be (a somewhat young Tony Stark), he somehow forgot what would/could happen if one plays around with changing the past and all for the lust of a girl that could have been dealt with differently. However, being a teenage boy, that kind of honesty did not even occur to him.

The premise and idea was good with dealt with what appeared to be very bright young people. The film used lots of visual effects, close ups with good camera angles. The actors are relatively new and with good material to work with could have a long career in films. As with this type of genre, the camera work was jumpy, and there were some continuity and editing errors, but the make up and CGI were handled well and added to the overall feel of the movie. The music of Imagine Dragons and Atlas Genius were the highlight of the film. I had the feeling along the way with this film that I was watching a slightly different version of Back to the Future and not a very good one. One cannot control the past or the power to change things to the way one would like them to be. Wait for the DVD and hopefully say goodbye to this type of filmmaking. GRADE: 2 of 5 crowns.