Project Almanac

I liked Project Almanac. It didn't necessarily excite me. And I did scratch my head a few times. But ultimately, I liked it. It had an interesting, if slow moving, story. It stayed grounded, or at least tried to, and did it's very best to legitimize time travel as a possibility, even if it doesn't do a very good job of actually explaining the whole thing. Certainly some things are silly, like explaining being able to control the time machine with a cell phone as cell phones 'having enough power to put a rocket in space', but these don't really take away from a lot of the fun dealing with the time travel element.

The story is pretty simple, but actually feels heart felt. David, a genius level teenager newly accepted to MIT, finds himself short on the money to pay his tuition there. This inadvertently leads him to discover an unfinished time machine his absent father left hidden in his basement. While it takes a while for the time travel elements to ramp up, there is fun to be had in seeing these kids build, experiment, and ultimately successfully travel through time. The film does a good job in allowing us to escape certain illogical elements, like how a group of teens with a fairly limited budget could create a fully functioning time machine, much less create one when no one else on earth seemingly could. David and his buddy Adam are already established as being geniuses from the moment the film begins. So, it's not much of a leap that together they could figure out how to complete the already crafted instructions and blueprints sitting in front of them. You could even say there's legitimacy to the use of the found footage style they went for. They even comment on the use of the camera, which at least shows they recognize that it's there.

However, despite some explanation that helps solidify the camera's constant presence, the film , like so many found footage films, would have benefited from simply being shot like a typical narrative. The film even goes the lengths to, strangely enough, be somewhere in between. We see edits that don't make sense for someone whose recording and we have music play over things like a montage. It's just bizarre to see and hear these things play out over a film that is supposed to pretend to be found off camcorder footage. And these production elements aren't bad, they're just out of place and show the film could have benefited from simply eschewing the found footage style all together. There's also some head scratching moments throughout that can be eye-roll-inducing, but I tend to be able to suspend my disbelief, so it didn't bother me as much.

The film overall isn't one I'd probably tell people to run out and see. But I'd certainly tell them it's not a bad film. Far from it, it's a surprise in the sub genre of found footage. And while it doesn't reach the heights of Chronicle, which I consider to be the peak of found footage, I do think it's one of the better found footage films.

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.

I just finished watching Project Almanac and if you haven't seen it yet, you might want to check it out. I was pleasantly surprised being that I had low hopes going in. it's another found footage movie, so if you are sick of them you might not enjoy it very much. Also if you're already not into time travel or science in general you might leave the theater with a bad taste in your mouth. I ended up enjoying it quite a bit and if I had to compare it to another movie I would say it has a strong feel of Project X and Chronical mixed together with the bases of it being more scientific then social(Project X) or supernatural(Chronical). You'll spend more time than usual feeling happy for the characters as they're having fun rather than the usual dose of drama every five minutes to keep people chewing their finger nails wondering what's going to happen next if Marie finds out Tony was talking to Marisa behind the bleaches and all that teen nonsense. it had a few mistakes but it's a movie so get over it. If I had to say one bad thing about it, I couldn't. I love science, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, and for me it was an easy line drive down the middle of the plate knocked right out of the park. Personally I would give it a solid 8 out of 10 but if you're not a science buff you might be looking more at a 6-6.5 out of 10.

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.

The teenager David Raskin (Jonny Weston) is a genius that dreams on joining the MIT. He has a crush on Jessie Pierce (Sofia Black-D'Elia) but he is too shy to date her. When David finds the design of a time machine that belonged to his father, he decides to build the device together with his friends Quinn Goldberg (Sam Lerner) and Adam Le (Allen Evangelista) and his sister Christina Raskin (Virginia Gardner). Soon Jessie joins the group and becomes David's girlfriend. When their experiment gets out of control and changing the future, David decides to fix the problems making them worse.

"Project Almanac" is a sort of "The Butterfly Effect 4", with a similar storyline with many paradoxes. Each time that the teenagers interfere with the past for personal profit, the future changes and the responsible David tries to fix it. Unfortunately the funny adventure is ruined by the awful camera work. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Projeto Almanaque" ("Project Almanac")