3/10

This is the maddest i have been in quite sometime. For the record, it doesn’t mean “Project Almanac” is the worst film i have seen in this early 2015, but it means that it lowered even my already low expectations. I knew that this film was originally scheduled to be released in August of 2014, but it got pushed back after the studios canned the original version. I can only imagine how bad THAT movie was if this is the one that got through to a wide release. “Project Almanac” is about a brilliant high school student and his friends uncovering blueprints for a mysterious device created by his father. It’s a time machine that enables them to go back to the past and change what they don’t like most about their lives. As with any time traveling film, the group realizes the damage they create every time they go back. This review is going to be a long one, because there are countless errors that i found in the film that shouldn’t be given a passing grade by anyone who watches. Getting the worst out of the way first, the sound mixing/editing is among the very worst that i have ever heard. There are many scenes at a party or a concert where we hear our characters crystal clear without any muffling or “What’s?” used at all. It’s also quite humorous to see two characters walk away from the camera only for us to hear their conversation perfectly when the camera is closed up. Closing up on someone doesn’t mean i will hear their conversation better. If i attempted the same fate with people on the other side of the road from me, i would be laughed out of a conversation like a moron. I don’t see why this accounts as believable by anyone who watches a film like this. When i see a scene at a club or a concert, it’s the first thing that hits my mind. This leads to my next problem and possibly the biggest handicap facing this film; the tired “Shot on Video” genre. This movie has ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to be shot on a handheld camera. It’s an overused cliche in 2015 that is hurting a movie a lot more than helping it. I think this film would’ve been fine without this gimmick. The script has some decent ideas when it comes to time travel that no other movie before it has explored, but we are literally kept in this bubble when a wide shot would be greatly appreciated to understand the impact of what is around the time travel areas. There are so many scenes that you wonder why the characters are filming this, or even who is doing it. Midway through the film, the main character tries to justify this by telling his sister to film everything from this point forward. That’s all fine and dandy, but what was the point of filming scenes before this point that included her brother looking in the attic, or filming her friends at school with witless banter? Lets try to pretend this isn’t a movie for a minute. What is the point of capturing these things on camera? Try not to be so desperate when trying to succeed in your 100 minute movie minimum. I also felt this movie screamed to be in 3D, but because of it’s craptastic idea to shoot this on a handheld, the movie wouldn’t do justice to the random objects floating around our characters when they travel through. One of the funniest aspects of movies shot like this is the effect of putting your hand on the camera lens to signal that the camera is being cut. Is the audience really this stupid to not understand that a simple edit splice couldn’t signify for them that the camera has been cut? Is there a button on the camera lens that shuts the camera off that i didn’t know about? For a movie about time travel, they certainly take their sweet time before getting to it. I appreciate that the movie tried to explain it’s silly premise with trying to explain to the audience how the machine works, but did the first forty minutes of the film really have to be about how many times they screwed up the formula? There is seriously an hour left in the movie when they travel for the first time, and even that is only an hour into the past. Most movies can pass if they get off to a sharp start, but this movie is in the negative column before we get a taste of it’s notable premise. In regards to explanations, “The Butterfly Effect” knew too that it had a silly concept, but it didn’t waste time explaining to the viewer why it worked. It told you the conditions of it’s main character, and let the interesting transition scenes guide the movie. For the record, that is a much better film than this meager effort by director Dean Isrealite. This is Dean’s first film, and it could be because of the hilarious alias name that he used so this film wouldn’t follow his career. Either way, his effort shows. The movie also has a lot of trouble following it’s own rules, as their are many scenes that contradict the rules that it put out in front of us. For example, there are two scenes in which a time paradox is created when the current version of characters run into their younger selves. When this happens, the travel is immediatly over, and our characters can disappear without ever existing to begin with. During the final scene, our main character has to attend the 8th birthday of his younger self. He is literally ten feet in front of this little boy, and not even so much as a flicker happens to let us know a paradox is being created. This movie makes me tired just thinking about it. Speaking of that party, it’s in a video of this birthday party where our main character finds the hints that his father created some sort of time machine. He gathers this by seeing a reflection of his older self in the mirror. How is this possible if he never traveled before? Wouldn’t there be multiple David’s walking around as a result of an older one already traveling back in time? If the movie is attempting to tell us that this might not be the first time that David has traveled back in time, then it needs to be fair with it’s audience and clue us into that aspect. We can only go with the timeline that we have been presented in the film. How are we supposed to know things that technically didn’t exist in front of our eyes? The movie is complimented with a nice young cast who are very charasmatic, and make the most out of error plagued script they are given. I was closely following their characters even if it was hard for me to take David seriously as a nerd character. I mean really, the guy looks like he is one year shy of a Calvin Klein ad. Overall, “Project Almanac” CAN NOT be the choice of movie that you see this weekend. There are much better films currently out, and much better time traveling movies already on DVD. The movie left me with not only a bad taste in my mouth, but a headache. Whether it was from the time travel rules it set for itself or the horrible camera work, you be the judge.