Review of Project Almanac (2015) by Mitchy — 20 Jan 2016

The concept was pretty neat, but the execution was pretty dumb.

Before I talk about this movie, I do need to have a little mini rant about how found footage is the movie equivalent of reality television. There was one point where it was pretty cool concept and was used to make stuff that was critically acclaimed and became quick cult classics, but now it's essentially a tired and crappy concept that will never go away because "It's cheap", to the point where you get sick of it, and then you suddenly end up in a nightmare where everything becomes it. Much like how television had the horror of every show being reality TV because "Reality television isn't just for celebrities anymore", the world of cinema has the horror of every movie being found footage because "Found Footage isn't just for horror films anymore".

So after getting our found footage sci-fi movie (Chronicle), and found footage sci-fi family movie (Earth to Echo), we have our found footage time travel movie. The sad thing is that I feel that this movie could have been pretty alright if they just made it about adult scientists instead of just random teenagers, since I feel like the drama and comic relief portions really hurt the film. "Oh man, I need to ace this test, better use the time machine!" "I need to get a girl friend, better use the time machine!" "Let's use the time machine to go to a party!", it feels less like a plot to a movie and more like some lost plot of an episode of a crappy Disney Channel sitcom, but with random edge sprinkled everywhere just to target the MTV movie goer audience. Seriously, if it wasn't for the found footage elements, post production effects, guns and unknown actors, it could have probably passed as a dumb Disney Channel movie, which is kind ironic when this has similar elements from the just as crappy Minutemen movie, to the point where it seems like they just took the script of that movie and just changed a few things.

One thing that definitely ruins this movie are the characters, like any found footage movie, they're **** and like any movie with teenagers, you can only really relate with them if you're a teenager at the same exact time, too bad I'm not a teenager anymore. That is always the biggest issue with movies that cater directly towards teens, unless you have good writing and everything, it will be unappealing to anyone who isn't a teenager around this time, and after about a couple years until the new teenagers come, it will already be dated and unenjoyable.

So what's good about this movie? I guess parts of the story and concept were pretty cool, and there were some parts that make it look like it could have been a pretty nice film if you give it more effort, rewrote it and of course, didn't make it found footage, but other than that, it's wasted potential all because some one decided to make it found footage with teenagers.