Project Almanac
Directed by: Dean Israelite
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
We have to all be honest here. There are things in life we regret, people we should have given our time to and people who took too much of it. Wouldn’t a time machine solve a lot of your current anxieties and dilemmas? Failed that last chem quiz? Maybe said the wrong thing to a friend? Imagine with a click of a button, you could change that.
Besides bending time and space, this movie bends your expectations dramatically. Dean Israelite’s Project Almanac promised teens experimenting with time travel, and the movie did deliver. But the more you think about it, the less of a good idea it becomes.
Johnny Weston plays boy genius, David Rasken, who is determined to get into Massachusetts Institute of Technology but can’t afford to. That is, until his sister, Kathy Rasken, played by Amy Landecker, discovers their deceased father’s blueprints to a time machine.
See, this is the part where you have to stretch your imagination to believe that while their genius scientist of a father couldn’t make the time machine work, these teenagers could complete the machine.
Pulling a Blair Witch Project, this movie is all handheld camera as well, which leaves a lot to the imagination. The oversimplified machine and concept of time travel in the film made you wonder why his father couldn’t finish the machine. And ignore Michael Bay’s name attached to this movie. While he may promise a chaotic thriller, the film leaves you with little climax and way too many obvious plot holes.
The other issue remains, handing a teenager a time machine means they are going to do immature things with it. The parties, the concerts, the first dates, these are the important things to a teenager. What a waste of a machine, yes?
Yet being Israelite’s first production, the story line was solid. It is what it promotes, teenagers with a time machine. And they obviously aren’t going to make good choices.
