Movie Review Repost - Project Almanac (2015)

At this time of year, you see a lot of "best/worst movies of 2015" lists. I've always wanted to do one of those, but the problem is that I haven't seen nearly enough movies in one year to do that type of thing. In fact, I didn't see all that many bad movies last year anyways. But for those who are interested, I've decided to repost here my review for the worst movie I saw in 2015: Project Almanac. It wasn't horrible, but looking back I think I was being way too generous with this one. Even if you had heard of it, you've probably already forgotten about it! In which case, enjoy this sad little reminder, and then go watch The Revenant again. Enjoy!

   Going in, I had no clue what this movie was about. All I knew about Project Almanac was that it was in found-footage style, and since I don't much care for those kinds of films my expectations were rather low. Was I right?

   Not really, somewhat, I guess. I will say that the film was slightly better than I expected. Project Almanac follows David and his friends as they stumble upon David's late dad's unfinished prototype of a time machine. Unlike most time travel movies, it focuses less on the possibilities of temporal displacement and more on the ethics involved in it and how it affects its participants' relationships. And so for this reason it makes sense that our characters are more than a little careless, self-centred, and irresponsible. Anyways, the film presents some interesting ideas concerning time travel, such as what happens when you go back and meet your past self, as well as how a time traveller's psyche is affected by having the power to go back to see and do anything. Unfortunately this story's adverse consequences (ripple effects) could have benefited from a clearer explanation. Also the ending was quite sloppy, with a bunch of unanswered questions.

   The actor portraying David – Jonny Weston – does a pretty good job, even if he does look way too old to be in high school. The rest of the cast is just OK, nothing special.

   Now let's talk about the whole found-footage schtick for a minute. For a film dealing with experimentation in time travel told from one point of view, it seemed like a good idea but it could've been handled better. Project Almanac suffers from consistency problems that are symptomatic of a lot of FF style films (i.e. it breaks the FF rules). Which camera are we supposed to believe filmed the whole movie? Was it the GoPro, the camera phone, or the old-school camcorder? Or was it a combination of all three? Either way, that camera has an impressive microphone range! And of course the film also has those super-serious scenes that no one in the right mind would ever be filming in real life. And lastly, the whole found-footage tone is kind of ruined when the movie includes cutaway shots to other locations, ominous zoom-ins, private moments where it's obviously just one person alone, and – worst of all – musical scoring!

   Despite this, Project Almanac is watchable enough. There's not much else to say really. If you want to watch it, watch it. If you don't, then don't.

Rating: two-and-a-half stars out of five.