 | MOVIE DETAILS • Name: Project Almanac • Year: 2015 • Country: USA • Director: Dean Israelite • Main cast: Jonny Weston, Sofia Black-D’Elia, Sam Lerner, Allen Evangelista, Virginia Gardner • Runtime: 106 minutes • Production company: Insurge Pictures, Platinum Dunes, MTV Films • TRAILER |
I hate it when a good idea turns into a bad film. Without going too deep into the story, so I don’t ruin the little interesting plot facts that could save this movie, but Project Almanac starts with good tension and good vibes, but ends like a dumb teenage pointless film. The first half of the movie is pretty interesting. Okay, lots of silly science, but at least it has “this thing” that calls your attention. Then you have your faith back in blockbuster movies, you hope they could be entertaining and inspiring again. But that feeling gets totally diluted on the second half, when it gets lost into something more proper for the Twilight series.
Yes, this is a time traveling movie. And yes, the main characters are teenagers. So yes, your biggest fears are true, the teenagers use the powers of time machine for very dumb purposes. Very dumb.
Plenty of dull dialogs, pointless and poor cultural references, so many things that are so very incorrect. Then you see the movie is produced by MTV Films. So you understand everything, the worst version of MTV is here.
I started this review attacking the movie too fast, I admit. But it’s just so bothering that the filmmakers used a good startpoint with a thrilling and kind of creepy situation the main characters find themselves in, that at the end I couldn’t think of any other way to start it. I even holded it for one day and slept it over before starting to type, so I am not so fresh disappointed with the movie, and I can have some mercy. Because after all, it might not be a so bad movie. As I mentioned before, the startpoint is quite interesting, the special effects are simple but well done, and the possibilities of bringing some cool new stuff into the genre were there. But instead, they chose to make a dummy teenage drama thing that goes nowhere.
Somehow Project Almanac is also some kind of tribute to the Back to the Future franchise. The way to explain paradoxes, the object they choose for their first experiments with their new home built machine (you’ll understand when you see it), some plugging incident… it has so many references and similarities with Back to the Future (1985). Even the name of the movie itself is a clear reference to the plot of Back to the Future Part II (1989). But calling to our nostalgia is not enough to save this film, even coming from a good idea, takes the wrong turn and becomes too hollow, too pubescent.
Still, this was one of the hardest movies to rate I’ve had for a while. Because the plot, the genre and the theme were well deserving at least a rating of 6. But the final resolution, characters and actions taken in the actual film were stupidly enough to deserve not more than a rating of 2. So I guess I should use science, real science not like the kids in the movie, and rate it with the average of 4. Still, if you like like sci-fi or time traveling movies, give it a try. Don’t expect much though. On the other side, if this is not really your genre, you can totally skip this one. At least, this is my opinion, and I hope it can help someone.
RATE: 4/10
IMDB URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2436386
