Review: Project Almanac

Teen Jonny Weston wants to get into MIT, and indeed gets his wish…but hasn’t got the funds to support his scholastic pursuits. Messing around with an old video camera of his late scientist father’s, Weston temporarily forgets his troubles when he views something startling on a recording of his 7^th birthday. He sees a figure in the background of a frame or two that looks very familiar: Himself. No, not his 7 year-old self but himself as he is now. How in the hell can this be possible? He shows this to his two best friends (Allen Evangelista and Sam Lerner) and sister (Virginia Gardner), but they aren’t as convinced as he is. However, when they stumble upon his father’s blueprints for a ‘temporal relocation device’ (A time machine, to the dummies out there- I kid, sit down!), they realise that Weston’s dad (who died on Weston’s 7^th birthday in a car accident) had been working on a time machine for the US military under the code name ‘Project Almanac’. So, what are three science nerds and a kid sister to do with such information? Follow the blueprints to construct at time machine, of course! They even steal hydrogen canisters in aid of their scientific endeavour. Soon, even Weston’s high school hottie crush Sofia Black D’Elia is joining them, when she catches them using her car battery to power the machine. At first they experiment on a smaller scale, using a toy car and the like, but you know they’re gonna end up sending themselves through time. At first it’s all fun and games, as they win the lottery and use the time machine to succeed academically in school. However, after an awkward moment with D’Elia, Weston wants to change something, and so he goes back in time…on his own. That’s when things get super-complicated. Gary Grubbs is amusing as their demanding science teacher.

 

Although adopting the “Chronicle” hand-held camera visual style irks more than it works (I’m a poet, y’all!), this 2015 time-travel teen film from director Dean Israelite and screenwriters Jason Pagan & Andrew Stark succeeds where the overrated “Looper” failed miserably. It doesn’t always check out, but there’s a lot less issues I had with this film’s time-travel conceit than with “Looper”. I have absolutely no idea why the reviews for this film have been so poor, I think it’s a real winner.

 

We start with a very funny opening scene as our hero (played by Jonny Weston) hopes to get into MIT by showing his skills before the camera. The experiment doesn’t go well. As usual for this sort of thing, the premise is irresistible, and mixing in a somewhat standard high school plot was an interesting move, too, even if I’m worried about Allen Evangelista’s intelligence and scholastic aptitude given he’s still stuck in high school. Does he think this is a time-travel spin-off from “The Secret Life of the American Teenager”? Anyway, add in a widowed family deal and you’ve got a film from the “Chronicle” era of filmmaking that comes from someone who clearly grew up on Steven Spielberg and early Robert Zemeckis, with a little Joe Dante (think “Explorers”). Good, I grew up on a similar diet.

 

It’s the kind of film that’s smart enough to know that the time machine has clearly already been built, a bit of logic that a lot of time-travel films tend to fuck up. So you can forgive if not all of the logic holds water and a few butterflies probably get stepped on. Besides, time travel isn’t real, so at some point all this nit-picking seems rather stupid. If the movie is good, you won’t notice as much. I noticed every damn problem with “Looper” because it was a terrible, terrible film. Ditto “A Sound of Thunder”, which was even worse. Here the only thing that really stuck out like a sore thumb was the stupidity of them filming themselves with a handheld camera stealing hydrogen. The handheld camera storytelling device is necessary for the ending to work, but it does clearly have its downside in terms of credibility. But overall, this film deserves credit for being current, futuristic, and nostalgic all at once. Now that’s impressive.

 

“Looper” was a film that stupidly gave us two versions of the same character meeting one another in a diner and conversing. This film also has a character meeting another version of themselves, but is smart enough to know that such a thing is incredibly complex and shows that there’s a danger inherent in such a meeting. It was quite clever, I thought, how this film dealt with that dilemma and name-dropping the “Terminator” movies and “Timecop” to boot. Basically, you can seemingly exist on what appears to be the same plane of existence as another version of yourself, but it’s actually a different timeline, and you have to be careful that the two versions of you don’t directly intersect. OK, I’ll buy that, much as I can make sense of it.

 

I also must commend the filmmakers for giving us very believable and relatable teen characters. Their ambitions are pretty relatable- win the lottery, buy a fast car, maybe stop your dad from dying. That latter one is never really acted upon, but perhaps it’s a bit too ‘icky’ and would’ve been a bit on the nose. Like “Chronicle”, this is pretty much what I’d expect typical teenagers to do in this kind of fantastical situation. Although lead actor Jonny Weston looks more Calvin Klein than science nerd, I was definitely impressed with actresses Virginia Gardner and (especially) Sofia Black D’Elia. Gardner is way too hot to be playing someone who is rarely seen on camera in the film, but hopefully we’ll see more of her in subsequent films. Her character won my heart (so long as I could go back in time to when I was a teenager, or else that’d be really creepy) the moment she noted that she’d like to go back in time to go to the premiere of the original “Star Wars” film. Me too, let’s make it a date! What? Cecily Strong-lookalike D’Elia (who had a role on the American version of “Skins” if I recall), meanwhile, has the charisma, stunning good looks and star quality that you just can’t teach. She’s so impressively charismatic that you find yourself unable to look at anyone else when she’s on screen. Performance-wise she blows everyone else off the screen, though Evangelista (old or not) has no problem convincing you that he’s a geek.

 

I really don’t know what everyone’s problem is with this film. If it weren’t for the credibility questions raised by the use of handheld cameras, I’d have no problems at all with this film. It works as both an intelligent time-travel film and likeable teen movie. I found it fascinating, believable on its own fantastical level, and highly entertaining. A really pleasant surprise and both Sofia Black D’Elia and first-time director Israelite are ones to watch. 

 

Rating: B