Project Almanac

Given that we are in the January doldrums, I really had low expectations for Project Almanac. 

Originally titled The Day Before Yesterday or something generic like that, and slated for an August (?) release, it was eventually pulled and moved to a dreaded January release which is never a good sign for any film. 

Early trailers did little to excite audiences as they were repetitive, seemed to reveal almost the entire plot (which they pretty much do), and left the high-school based film feeling constrained by a PG-13 rating. 

Suffice it to say that I wasn't exactly "pumped" to go see this one last night, but I figured that I often enjoy found footage films, (Cloverfield being my absolute favorite) and at least the movie was only 106 minutes long. 

To my surprise, I actually really enjoyed myself for almost the entire duration of the film and while it may not reach the highs of other found footage films like Cloverfield, Paranormal Activity 3, or even Chronicle, nor come close to touching time travel greatness, it presents a fun combination of the two genres and turns out better than I expected it to. 

Apparently $1.8 million isn't that exciting to some people...

Use the Force, David!

Project Almanac has a special spark, and that mainly stems from its characters and the actors/actresses who portray them. They all feel like genuine high school students who have their own angst, humor, style, etc. Jonny Weston does a great job leading the film as boy-genius, David Raskin. His character is entirely unbelievable in the real world as he is a good looking nerd who is somehow fit, smarter than most college grads, and gets almost no scholarship to MIT for an awesome invention (not the time machine). But oh well. This is a movie about teenagers time traveling after all. Speaking of which, the film does its best to make this process and all of its hard-to-believe aspects believable, and this is mainly assisted by the format of the found footage genre. Many people aren't a fan of this genre (often for reasons based on nausea), but I've grown fond of it if the scenario is unique enough. Almanac won't convert anyone, but it is relatively even-keel when it comes to camera work, doing away with most of the genre's "faults" like sporadic zoom, shakiness, etc. These things still exist throughout the film, but they are greatly decreased compared to recent attempts. 

Surprisingly, coming from a Michael Bay produced film, the film has a bit of heart. It's not all about solving the time travel mystery but rather the connection that these kids develop as well as the time traveling. Their interactions are realistic and entertaining to watch with the love interest being more effective than I would have originally guessed. The female characters are little more than damsels, sometimes in distress, while the male characters are the heroes/geniuses, but it was still a group that I enjoyed following throughout their adventures with time travel.

Ah....you have chosen the Dark Side. Good, goooooood!

Where Project Almanac falters most is its end, where not everything is tied up as nicely as it should be, nor do some of the final plot elements follow the rules of time travel or make sense given the context of what the film establishes before it. At the end of the day, I don't think anyone was expecting Almanac to become the next, iconic time travel drama, but even still, it's annoying to see when a film doesn't take the somewhat theoretical rules of time travel seriously. The ending is also abrupt, with the film moving at a pretty slow pace, up until the last 15 minutes where the end rushes up to greet you and then it just...happens. This seems to be a side effect of many found footage films, but I felt like this one deserved a bit more closure than it got. 

I always enjoy a good surprise at the theater and Project Almanac is the first of 2015 merely because it wasn't nearly as bad as I was predicting. It's entertaining, often funny, and filled with just enough heart and mystery to make you actually care about the proceedings. Whether or not you should rush out to see it is really up to you and the opinion you hold of both genres that it combines, but if you are up for a film this weekend, you could do worse than Almanac. 

CONS:

• As a time travel film, it doesn't present much new, nor does it abide by all the "rules"
• Female characters are pretty one dimensional
• The ending is rough compared to the rest of the film and it is abrupt
• The film's trailers truly give too much of it away and past a certain point in the film, it's very easy to see what is going to happen

PROS:

• Fun, genuine characters who feel like real high schoolers
• Given the material, the performances from the "kids" are all strong
• The film uses the found footage techniques moderately which will help those who are typically not fans of the genre
• Often funny
• Good soundtrack which isn't surprising given that it's a MTV film
• Has some heart and establishes a worthwhile core mystery that pulls the audience in for most of its length

Rath's Review Score: 7/10