Project Almanac (2015) User Reviews (272)

Funny Adventure Ruined by the Awful Camera Work

[claudio_carvalho · 6/10 · 5 September 2015]

The teenager David Raskin (Jonny Weston) is a genius that dreams on joining the MIT. He has a crush on Jessie Pierce (Sofia Black-D'Elia) but he is too shy to date her. When David finds the design of a time machine that belonged to his father, he decides to build the device together with his friends Quinn Goldberg (Sam Lerner) and Adam Le (Allen Evangelista) and his sister Christina Raskin (Virginia Gardner). Soon Jessie joins the group and becomes David's girlfriend. When their experiment gets out of control and changing the future, David decides to fix the problems making them worse.

"Project Almanac" is a sort of "The Butterfly Effect 4", with a similar storyline with many paradoxes. Each time that the teenagers interfere with the past for personal profit, the future changes and the responsible David tries to fix it. Unfortunately the funny adventure is ruined by the awful camera work. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Projeto Almanaque" ("Project Almanac")

Spoilers *Paradox explained * for those that are to dumb to understand

[dimbost · 7/10 · 15 May 2015]

So the films starts off establishing that they are all smart, and the sister likes to film. The whole film is done in the found footage format.

The story is actually interesting when you break it down. The whole ground hog moment, was to establish the beginning of the ripple effect. Every time Quinn entered the Chemistry room, he showed cockiness and preparations, which led the teacher to throw curve ball questions. and until Quinn knew the answers to all of the possible questions he had to keep on repeating it.

The lottery ticket. "Why didn't they go back and rewrite it" as Adam said he didn't want to waste his time worrying that some how they cheated and being in that panic mode. Remember how nervous their were filling in the paper and get away from the store after. Plus this was, plus don't forget this is still all experiments for them. They can go back and win more lotteries any time they wanted to.

David kept on pushing the machines ability to travel further by using the time watchers. Remember in the begging he said that they can only go back as far as 3 weeks, but later he said it can be possible to go back up to 10 years. Next step was 3 month: Lollapalooza. we did hear his sister say that she missed out.

This is where it starts to get more complicated and can be taken in two theories. After the failed kiss David goes back to Lollapalooza and if we see carefully he is walking at fast paced and his friends say "Oh there he is." "Looks like he is actually gonna do it" So we can assume that there was a period of time in which the first time David was away trying to get the courage to approach her, and the second David timed it so that he would take her on this walk before he managed to get there. Still don't get it? Think of Back to the future when Marty goes back for the second time and has to make sure he doesn't run into himself in the past.

David going all the way back to his 7th birthday after Jessie's disappearing. We saw Quinn nearly disappear when he started to look at himself, but the guys quickly moved him away from his sight. They broke the circle of both consciousness trying to comprehend what was happening. Unfortunately for Jessie, David didn't do that and let the circle complete erasing her at the present time line. So if he was to go back another day, she would still exist in that period. But not from Tuesday 7pm or whatever it was.

David destroying the machine in the end is paradox. No its not, and here is why in the first video of him being seen in the mirror. His father is lighting up the candles, when he goes back in the end, his father is talking to his mother. In the first Video when they figure out that the keys belong to Jessie and re watch the video, there is no blood on his hand, when he is there in the end, the blood is clearly visible. Him trying to save his father the first time, theory. His father clearly states "You figured it... i have so many questions" Obviously his father knew that he wasn't going to figure it out. and most importantly why was he hiding it after the mysterious phone call? he knew that he was going to die, probably for not handing over the machine to the government. "Why you ask?' well because David in the end says "its time for you to say goodbye to your son" and the father's line to the young version of David "A friend, he is here to fix something" My assumption on this, is that his father knew the risks with the machine, and was hoping to either have more to study it or die protecting its secret. After seeing his son, he clearly understood what he was there to do.

So why was David in the first video originally, Because the movie we were watching was not the prime time line, but rather already altered time line where David wanted to speak to his father in hopes of figuring out what can be done to try and change the future. Second time line David came back a few moments later. Remember him stopping at the door for few seconds? No? re watch it. David would not have been caught in the Party camera the second time. Through the clips when David was watching all of the party moments, The camera captured the moment when his father was talking to the mother about the call and was in a different angle, so he erased any evidence of himself at that party from that camera. He burnt all of the notes and destroyed the machine as he did that we see that he starts to flicker. That happens, because destroying the machine means you destroy the one that is in your backpack, and if the one in your back pack never existed then you never came here. The camera CAN BE (ad argued for a plot hole but) explained as just a object, which could not alter the universe (Like leaving a stick behind) Camera doesn't have any living organisms or bacteria. The end is them seeing the second camera and discovering that they learned how to time travel, and seeing presumable everything that we saw in the film. So when he walks up to Jessie at the end, he already seen it and knew what she was going to say. But they no longer can time travel, as the machine or the blue prints don't exist

Hope you guys liked my review! and any questions feel free to send me a message.

Explorers meets Back to Future in Found Footage style.

[azanti0029 · 7/10 · 7 June 2015]

This film seems to have really divided people on here but on the whole I really liked it.

Teenager David Raskin (A very good Jonny Weston, an actor clearly with a good career ahead of him) is a bit of a brain box at school. His best friend is an even bigger nerd than he is and not as brainy and of course he fancies one of the it girls, while his sister is being bullied by some others. Weston is a very good looking actor, so trying to pass him off as a science geek is really a bit of a stretch one of the films weakest flaws but one I was prepared to forgive. This group form an unlikely alliance when they discover via one of David's deceased Dad's experiments, they have invented time travel. They jump together and change various things in their recent past and also do some fairly typical teenage things like go and win the lottery. Someone on here was moaning saying people wouldn't do that, they would go back and see people they loved and so on - well I am fairly certain as a teenager I would do both.

Our lead character though cannot leave well enough alone and jumps once too often and the ripple effect begins to cause them problems.

Project Almanac is a found footage film and these normally alone will cause me not to watch them but I found the premise of this one intriguing enough to seek it out. It's helped by a reasonably good script which plays out like a good episode of the Twilight Zone but what really helps the film is the cast. Its pretty rare that a group of teenage actors should all be universally so good, but that is certainly the case here. Sofia Black-D'Elia who more recently starred in Born of War is especially good and one I predict big things for while Sam Lerner who plays the thankless role of the Annoying friend clearly has taken on board everything his actor father taught him. This really is a talented group of individuals.

The film reminded me of the 1980s cult film The Explorers and I found myself rooting for the hero towards the end because you wanted him to set everything right. I really enjoyed this film and stayed up really late when I was super tired to watch it. Thankfully I wasn't bored and I was with them until the end. Recommended, from me at least anyway.

Won't Reinvent The Genre, But It Is Entertaining

[cadillac20 · 6/10 · 28 January 2015]

I liked Project Almanac. It didn't necessarily excite me. And I did scratch my head a few times. But ultimately, I liked it. It had an interesting, if slow moving, story. It stayed grounded, or at least tried to, and did it's very best to legitimize time travel as a possibility, even if it doesn't do a very good job of actually explaining the whole thing. Certainly some things are silly, like explaining being able to control the time machine with a cell phone as cell phones 'having enough power to put a rocket in space', but these don't really take away from a lot of the fun dealing with the time travel element.

The story is pretty simple, but actually feels heart felt. David, a genius level teenager newly accepted to MIT, finds himself short on the money to pay his tuition there. This inadvertently leads him to discover an unfinished time machine his absent father left hidden in his basement. While it takes a while for the time travel elements to ramp up, there is fun to be had in seeing these kids build, experiment, and ultimately successfully travel through time. The film does a good job in allowing us to escape certain illogical elements, like how a group of teens with a fairly limited budget could create a fully functioning time machine, much less create one when no one else on earth seemingly could. David and his buddy Adam are already established as being geniuses from the moment the film begins. So, it's not much of a leap that together they could figure out how to complete the already crafted instructions and blueprints sitting in front of them. You could even say there's legitimacy to the use of the found footage style they went for. They even comment on the use of the camera, which at least shows they recognize that it's there.

However, despite some explanation that helps solidify the camera's constant presence, the film , like so many found footage films, would have benefited from simply being shot like a typical narrative. The film even goes the lengths to, strangely enough, be somewhere in between. We see edits that don't make sense for someone whose recording and we have music play over things like a montage. It's just bizarre to see and hear these things play out over a film that is supposed to pretend to be found off camcorder footage. And these production elements aren't bad, they're just out of place and show the film could have benefited from simply eschewing the found footage style all together. There's also some head scratching moments throughout that can be eye-roll-inducing, but I tend to be able to suspend my disbelief, so it didn't bother me as much.

The film overall isn't one I'd probably tell people to run out and see. But I'd certainly tell them it's not a bad film. Far from it, it's a surprise in the sub genre of found footage. And while it doesn't reach the heights of Chronicle, which I consider to be the peak of found footage, I do think it's one of the better found footage films.

Enjoying rather than studying

[kosmasp · 6/10 · 29 September 2015]

And this is true of both the characters in the movie and the viewer. Well the latter should rather try to enjoy as much as possible. Because the science behind it all does not really mix well together. A problem that the movie is not alone with. Mingling with time and trying to make it plausible is almost impossible. Just a few have managed to get the "technical" things right or rather the things right that would seem logical.

But throw logic out of the window, because this is about teenagers. And while you get the obvious "what would you change, if you could" discussion, in the end it all boils down to personal advantage (mostly). And can you blame them? The twist at the end is kind of redundant, but it's there and better than the alternate endings that can be watched on the disc/special features. Enjoyable if you don't think too much

Entertaining and Thought Provoking

[luke5119 · 7/10 · 19 May 2015]

Much like Chronicle, this film profiles exactly what would happen when you give teenagers certain powers. In Chronicle it was "super powers" in Project Almanac, it's the ability to travel through time. There were elements of this film that made me give it far more credit than I would normally have.

1.) Seeing Yourself - This is the first time travel movie that I've seen where in the instance of someone seeing there physical self in the past can cause a fault in time where both individuals disappear, like they cancel each other out or something.

2.) Time Travel and Power - Unlike most time travel movies where the possibilities seem limitless with the machine, the one in Project Almanac requires mass amounts of power to be able to work. Not unlike the DeLorean in Back to the Future. However in Project Almanac, they can't instantly travel back in time 1,000 years. In fact the furthest they are ever able to go back is 10 years. That's what really made me appreciate this film the most I think. That even time travel has its limits, and even when they work out the algorithms, they can only go back so far, successfully.

3.) Full Circle - I loved how they brought everything full circle at the end of the film. I was quite happy with how they ended it, I had so many questions, but that's what made it so much fun. Not every single thing needs to be answered, some things can be left for the viewer to figure out.

4.) The Budget - One thing you have to remember going into this movie is that it's not a $75 million film, it's a film with a modest to low budget. Given what they had to work with, I was thoroughly impressed with most of the visuals during the time traveling scenes, not bad at all.

Time Travel Paradoxes

[steve-250-379589 · 6/10 · 27 February 2015]

I didn't read all of the previous reviews but I noticed a lack of comment on time travel paradoxes in the one's I did read. Even a basic understanding of time travel theory would have made this a better movie. There were not only inconsistent paradoxes but some glaringly missing ones. How did the test car end up in the wall by only going back 1 hour? The wall was already there. When they went back to help Quinn redo his presentation, why didn't they run into themselves from the previous attempts? The plot made it obvious that running into yourself would wipe out both people, but when Quinn drew the smiley face on himself, nothing serious happened. If it occurred with animate objects, why didn't occur with inanimate objects, as with the two cameras? There are others but I won't go into all of them. There were too many obvious inconsistencies for me to come away happy about the movie.

Good film ruined by disastrous camera work.

[cken29 · 8/10 · 21 February 2015]

I'm not going to include any spoilers. I enjoyed the story and found the cast appealing. It was an interesting idea with some good special effects. There were a couple of plot holes but there were also some funny nods to movies such as Back to the Future which I enjoyed. You remember the scene where Doc Brown is trying to get two electric cables to connect?

It reminded me a lot of the superb low-budget 'Primer' which covers some of the same ground. In that movie, some geekie guys accidentally discover time-travel and have to decide what to do with it. Also, Almanac had some good jokes, which many movies seem to leave out.

Seriously, did you see any jokes in Man of Steel? Sadly the shocking camera work ruined the whole experience.All the jumping about, whirling, juddering and flicking etc. It just made me feel ill.

A very poor man's iteration of The Butterfly Effect/Cloverfield

[Inky_Enston · 6/10 · 7 March 2023]

Whilst The Butterfly Effect isn't the greatest film it is leaps beyond this ridiculous effort. It's insulting to watch a 'found footage film' that have the quality combination of a Arri or Red with Leica APO-Telit-R lens mounted to a Russian Arm & sound that somehow is a wirless Telefunken lavalier.

Moreover the acting is poor. The premise is tired. The first half is unnecessary. The direction is via a book of, "direct by numbers"...just watch The Butterfly Effect - even if you've already seen it. Project Almanac is the worst film but it really isn't worth wasting time on.

I rarely gift lower than 5 stars. For some reason people hand out 1 or 2 star ratings willy-nilly. That's ridiculous. You have to see 5 stars as 1 star and work from there. Most films are above 6 stars. 6 stars is a low rating. 7 = watchable. 6 = tolerable. 5 = should have accidentally been better. 4 = there's no excuse for it's existence - it shouldn't have been green lit let alone released. 3 stars or less is something you'd rate as a form of protest - for instance you'd give "Triumph des Willen" 1 star because it's a famous Nazi propaganda film.

The following is personal advice. Please prevent yourself from using lower than 5 stars. Most films via craft and effort alone deserve 5 stars. And if a film truly blows you away and has done for years then it deserves 10 stars (it's a classic. Don't rate a film classic just because that's the going consensus. If you thought The Godfather was pretty good but nowhere near as entertaining as Back to the Future then give The Godfather an 8 or 9, don't gift it classic status because that's what's expected).

Of course you're free do to as you please but I feel the scoring system is far too loose and therefore very much ineffective. I love The Godfather but do most really feel it's better/more entertaining/more memorable/more impactful/more influential etc than Raiders, Aliens, The Thing, Back to the Future, Private Ryan, The Shining, Carlito's Way, Jaws, The Matrix, Withnail & I, Pulp Fiction, Goodfellas, Se7en, Funny Games, Fight Club, Casino, Cape Fear, Schindler's List etc? Because its ranked higher. For the overwhelming majority of viewers, it is not - most haven't seen The Godfather let alone care to watch it yet it's ranked so high because they feel they must rank it high, a lot like a combination of how folk are more likely to follow an account on Instagram purely because it has a lot of followers even though the content is poor and the followers were paid for and/or Winston Churchill is loved when next to known knows his history beyond a few trademarks during World War II (and that it's the going consensus to blindly treat him as a hero). I hope that makes sense.

Ghostbusters 2016 = 6 stars (equivalent of 2/5 stars) Ghostbusters 1984 = 10 stars (equivalent of 5/5 stars)

Back to the Future/Terminator/T2 = 10 Stars The Butterfly Effect = 8 stars Project Almanac = 6 stars.

gets tiresome

[SnoopyStyle · 4/10 · 25 April 2017]

David Raskin (Jonny Weston) applies to MIT with the help of his friends Quinn Goldberg (Sam Lerner), Adam Le (Allen Evangelista), and his sister Christina Raskin (Virginia Gardner). He could only get a small partial scholarship and his mother is looking to sell their home to raise tuition money. While looking for his late father's experiments in the attic, David finds an old video of his 7th birthday but it has his older self in the video. He and his friends find parts of a time travel machine hidden in his basement. They reconstruct it and travel back in time with his crush Jessie Pierce (Sofia Black-D'Elia).

This uses the found footage idea and the shaky cam moves get tiresome. It adds nothing and has no real internal logic. The kids are all excited and hyper. Obviously, it's intended to inject energy into the movie. That also gets tiresome. The big turning point is Lollapalooza which only adds to the superficiality of the whole enterprise. The premise starts out well but the movie is a long slow downward slide. Its initial potential slowly fades away.

i had doubts going in but i ended up liking it

[Zielke9 · 8/10 · 15 February 2015]

I just finished watching Project Almanac and if you haven't seen it yet, you might want to check it out. I was pleasantly surprised being that I had low hopes going in. it's another found footage movie, so if you are sick of them you might not enjoy it very much. Also if you're already not into time travel or science in general you might leave the theater with a bad taste in your mouth. I ended up enjoying it quite a bit and if I had to compare it to another movie I would say it has a strong feel of Project X and Chronical mixed together with the bases of it being more scientific then social(Project X) or supernatural(Chronical). You'll spend more time than usual feeling happy for the characters as they're having fun rather than the usual dose of drama every five minutes to keep people chewing their finger nails wondering what's going to happen next if Marie finds out Tony was talking to Marisa behind the bleaches and all that teen nonsense. it had a few mistakes but it's a movie so get over it. If I had to say one bad thing about it, I couldn't. I love science, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, and for me it was an easy line drive down the middle of the plate knocked right out of the park. Personally I would give it a solid 8 out of 10 but if you're not a science buff you might be looking more at a 6-6.5 out of 10.

Sometimes intriguing, but too long and drawn out

[Wizard-8 · 3 February 2016]

It seems the "found footage" film genre is in no danger of dying out any time soon. This one at least tries to mix in another genre that has proved popular over the years, the time travel genre. Not only that, but it also makes the main characters teenagers. Naturally, with the movie covering more than one angle, the results are interesting at times. The screenplay does try to make the movie more intelligent and logical than usual - for example, the movie takes its time by showing the teens (realistically) making multiple tests on the time travel machine before trying it on themselves. And when they do start trying it on themselves, the actions they do one by one do seem believable.

Unfortunately, while I did appreciate (at first) this slow and methodical treatment, ultimately it backfired. The movie eventually becomes too long and too slow; it takes more than three quarters of the running time before the central characters find themselves in trouble. Curiously, while the movie is too long, there are some plot points that are never explained, like why all of a sudden the police are pursing the main character.

The movie probably would have worked better if it had taken a page from the 2012 found footage "Chronicle" - that movie had a good balance between showing enough planning and detail by the teens who find great power while bringing in conflict much earlier. (And the movie was twenty minutes shorter.) As it is, "Project Almanac" does have some interest and intelligence, but I think many viewers will soon become impatient with it.

Minor issues detract from an otherwise enjoyable time-travel flick.

[BrentHankins · 7/10 · 29 January 2015]

Time travel is always a tricky subject for a filmmaker to tackle. It's been done countless times, with countless interpretations, and most attempts struggle to show us anything we haven't seen before. But every once in awhile, someone comes along with an idea that breathes new life into the genre, and aside from a few stumbles in the third act, Project Almanac fits nicely into that category.

Teenage genius David Raskin (Jonny Weston) just got accepted to MIT, but there's one problem - he was only awarded a partial scholarship, and his mother's only solution to afford the staggering tuition cost is to put the family home on the market. Hoping to apply for a last- minute grant from a yearly technology competition, David begins digging through his late father's possessions for potential ideas, and discovers an old video camera containing footage from his seventh birthday party. But as he reviews the tape with his sister, he makes a startling discovery - his modern-day self is visible in the background of the footage.

Along with his closest friends and fellow inventors Adam (Allen Evangelista) and Quinn (Sam Lerner), David begins tearing through his father's basement workshop looking for answers. He finds them hidden in a floor safe: a small device, along with a collection of notebooks and blueprints for a "temporal displacement" device. "We can't build a time machine in my basement," David says in disbelief, before Adam reminds him of the video footage. "I think we already did."

The experimentation process quickly becomes the highlight of Project Almanac, as David and his friends repeatedly test the device on various objects. The visuals here are tremendous fun, and the sheer, unadulterated joy the kids display when they realize what they've accomplished is infectious. They behave exactly the way you would expect teenagers with a time machine would behave: they go back in time to ace tests, stand up to bullying classmates, attend Lollapalooza, and in David's case, win the affections of longtime crush Jessie Pierce (Sofia Black-D'Elia).

The film runs into trouble around the beginning of the third act, when a seemingly innocuous deed turns out to have severe ramifications for the rest of the world. There's no clear explanation why things have become so dour, when previous trips into the past didn't result in disaster, and the film quickly descends into Butterfly Effect territory as each attempt to correct these mistakes results in further calamity. The ending also provides far more questions than answers, which is particularly disappointing when the first two-thirds of the film is so well-done.

Project Almanac also loses a few points thanks to a found footage approach that does more harm than good. The hand-held camera makes perfect sense as the kids film their experiments - David is a scientist, after all, and scientists like to document everything. But a lot of the dialogue-only scenes would have been better served by a more traditional cinematography style, as there are plenty of scenes where constantly holding onto a camcorder doesn't seem plausible.

These are minor issues, to be sure, but they're still issues that keep Project Almanac from being a truly great film. As it stands, it's still a thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable entry into the genre - just make sure you take some Dramamine beforehand, and don't try too hard to make sense of the overlapping timelines in the third act, or the film's head-scratching conclusion.

How stupid do they think teenagers are?

[Jerghal · 5/10 · 14 May 2015]

Project Almanac is a found footage time travel movie. And as far as time travel films go this must be one of the worst I've ever seen. It takes them almost half of the movie to make the damn thing (with old car batteries and Xbox 360 parts) and once they have the power to travel through time, what do they do? Go to parties and concerts coz apparently they were to stupid to go to them like in normal time. The movie also does little effort to respect some time travel rules like concerning duplicates off yourself already being there at the same place etc. Spoiler: they redo a certain part like 8 times (groundhog style like the characters correctly state) to do...a chemistry test over and over. WTF??? Then they get the fantastic idea to play the lottery, they f*ck it up by only filling in 5 of the 6 numbers correctly so they only win 1,8 m$ instead of 53m$, and THAT they only do once??? I have to say I've never seen a time travel flick where the characters and the retarded plot enraged me so much as this one. I know the target audience is teenagers but even they must have seen better in this genre. The directors next movie is going to be 'Power Rangers'. I'm wondering if he was so stupid to choose that himself or if the studio execs wanted to punish him for making dumb movies.

A fun and enjoyable time travel film without all the confusion (mostly)

[stephendaxter · 7/10 · 13 May 2015]

Project Almanac is a sci-fi found footage film about.... no, not horror.... time travel. I thought it was an interesting way to show a time travel film and really made sense when you were watching it, as to why they would be filming, so it helped to know why they always had a camera out. Overall i would have to say that this was a pretty fun film and doesn't go too over the top with the confusing back and forth through time stuff that other time travel films do. It is pretty easy to understand for a general audience and that helps to have more people follow the plot but can make it a little more predictable. I didn't feel that this was all that predictable though, there were quite a few moments that i could not have guessed and some others that were foreshadowed a little too much. So in terms of the plot it was very coherent for 96% of the film and i have to say was also interesting, just the last 2 minutes of the film for me got unnecessarily complex and ruined the fun adventure the rest of the film felt like.

Also, while this was a found footage film there were many times throughout the film where i was able to forget about that. The shaky cam and awkward camera angles that do bother me in other found footage films didn't have the same effect in this film. Some of the ways that sections are shot with a mounted camera or in an environment that would be shot with a moving camera in a regular film helped to take my mind off the fact that this was just another found footage film. So to make it a found footage film but have elements of just a regularly shot sci-fi film i thought really elevated the film.

In terms of the characters i thought they were all very well written, sometimes a little over exaggerated in terms of their emotions but as a group i thought they worked pretty well. I also have no idea who these actors were but they were all pretty good, no standouts but they were all good to watch. Unfortunately where this film let me down a little was the first section of the film before all of the funky time travel stuff begins, it was just a little too slow and i would have liked for them to just cut to the chase and get to the time travelling without the setup that didn't really add anything to the film except for a few minor plot points later in the film. In the end this sci-fi time travel film does a good job at creating a fun and easily understandable story with pretty good characters. But is let down by a fairly unnecessary first section and a very unnecessarily confusing ending. - 7.3

Project x meets chronicle with a touch of back to the future

[blackspider187 · 7/10 · 21 February 2015]

If your looking for a coherent and scientific explanation of the dangers of time travel your not going to get it from this film. However that's not a bad thing although the danger of damaging the present by changing the past is ever present. where this film is at it's best is in the characters 5 teens creating a time machine seems highly unlikely but the action they take once the time machine is up and running is highly believable. Using extraordinary means to solve ordinary problems. Money troubles getting bullied to the the biggest and most complex of all teenagers problems falling in love. How many of us have dreamt about going back in time and winning that big super lotto jackpot or just being able to pass that important test by knowing the answer before you take it. This film really starts to fall apart when things fall apart it is hard to wrap up a time travel story with any sort of clarity that is just the nature of time travel unable to reset things and also have that happy ending. Project almanac fails in it's attempt at giving the audience any real closer. The end feels rushed and by trying to not be predictable feels a little false. As a whole the film entertains as an advert for why it's a good thing teenagers don't have time machines.

"Project Almanac" is a flawed but worthy addition to the time travel genre

[CleveMan66 · 7/10 · 2 February 2015]

I think time travel movies are fascinating! The whole idea of changing your destiny and the possible ripple effects of doing so just blows my mind. Hollywood seems to understand all that pretty well, because they've given me (us) all sorts of different time travel movies to enjoy over the years. We've had comedies (the "Hot Tub Time Machine" films, the "Bill and Ted" movies and the "Back to the Future" films), action films ("Looper", "Timecop" and the "Terminator" films), adventure movies ("Timeline", "The Time Machine" and the 1960s and 70s (and the more recent) "Planet of the Apes" series of films), romances ("About Time", "13 Going on 30" and "Somewhere in Time"), time travel movies that play around with history ("Time After Time", "The Final Countdown" and "The Philadelphia Experiment"), mainly sci-fi (most of the "Star Trek" films) and movies that mainly explore that ripple effect I mentioned ("Source Code", "The Butterfly Effect" and "Sliding Doors"). And then there's "Project Almanac" (PG-13, 1:46), which brings together several different types of time travel movies and does it well…mostly.

David Raskin (Jonny Weston) is no ordinary high school student. He's smart enough to get into MIT with a partial scholarship and invent a drone that he can control with sensors on his hands. He has friends like Quinn Goldberg (Sam Lerner) and Adam Le (Allen Evangelista), who are smart enough to help him with his projects, and a slightly younger sister named Christina (Virginia Gardner) who videos all of it. When this group discovers a strange image on an old video tape, they get together and make history. Or maybe I should say CHANGE history. The gang sees an image of teenage David in a mirror on a video tape of his 7th birthday party! His dad died in a car wreck a short time after shooting that video, but he left behind something that may help the teens unravel the mystery. David's dad was a brilliant inventor and apparently, at the time of his death, was working on a temporal displacement device – a time machine! David and his friends use a partially-built prototype and blue prints they find in David's basement to actually build the thing. After some trial and error, they successfully send a toy car back in time one minute and soon decide to use the machine on themselves.

What do they do with the ability to move back and forth through time? They address typical concerns of young adults. One of them cheats on a class presentation, another gets revenge on a school bully, they all cheat to win the lottery (and have a blast spending their winnings) and they party – going back in time three weeks to check out Lollapalooza. David eventually wants to go back ten years to save his dad's life, but first he wants to win the affections of his long-time crush, Jessie (Sofia Black-D'Elia) who has stumbled onto his little project and joins the crew. So, everyone is having a good time and changes the past to make their futures better. What could go wrong?

Plenty. Since our lives develop from a series of both big and small decisions, as well as chance occurrences, and all of our lives are so interconnected, changing even the smallest details of the past has ripple effects that no one can imagine at the time. For example, if a star high school basketball player breaks his leg and his team misses the playoffs, people who would have been at the championship game are now going to be doing other things and having different interactions with other people, a situation that could have tragic consequences. But going back in time to keep the negative ripple effects from occurring then changes other details, which could cause even more serious ripples. Changing the past becomes like pulling one stray thread out of a sleeve and ruining the whole shirt – or a butterfly flapping its wings, changing the air currents, and helping to cause a hurricane half-way around the world. And then there's the problem of going back in time and encountering your earlier self, a circumstance that, in this movie's story, endangers your very existence.

It's pretty exciting watching David and his friends change the past, deal with the consequences and then try desperately to fix things without causing any more harm. Unfortunately, there are a number of big and small holes in the plot along the way, but almost every movie – especially time travel movies – require each audience member to buy into the premise and press the "I believe" button. The movie takes a little too long to get to the really interesting parts of the story and spends too much time on the Lollapalooza scenes, but this movie taking time travel seriously and really exploring the possible repercussions makes up for all that. And can we PLEASE stop overusing the found footage format, especially in a movie like this when it's so unnecessary? Fortunately, the film's very cool special effects help you forget about how the movie was filmed and lets you appreciate it for what it is. Sure, "Project Almanac" has its problems, but it's still a pretty fun and interesting ride, and it is aimed at teenagers, but can easily be appreciated by older fans of time travel movies. All things considered, I had a good time at "Project Almanac" and give it a "B+".

Great Idea - Zero Logic

[mza115 · 6/10 · 1 November 2022]

Love a time travel / time loop movie but this one wasn't one of the best.

If you can get past the annoying teenage characters. If you can get past their questionable plot choices. If you can get past the annoying shaky cam "found footage" filming technique. If you can get past the absolutely ridiculous" time travel logic". And finally if you can past the gaping plot holes. Then there is a movie here.

Sadly all the above has been done in other films with better results.

If you want to see a better teenage shaky cam film watch Chronicle. If you want to watch a better time travel movie watch Primer.

HOWEVER... I did watch it till the end so I'll give it a 6 out of 10.

Great found footage

[layerzcookie · 8/10 · 3 February 2015]

Found footage movies are often pretty predictable and sketchy, but project almanac isn't. Unlike other movies of this genre, the pace is kinda slow, which is appropriate for the story. When you build a time travel machine, it is normal that it takes multiple attempts before it works. Even though sometimes you may wonder why the characters are still filming their journey, it's not disturbing enough to prevent you from focusing on the plot, which is a good thing. There's also a good love story and some funny moments, in addition to a breath taking last act. I'd compare it to the Canadian movie Chronicles.

Overall you'll have a great time watching this movie, even more if you are familiar with this genre.

Shaky Camera SciFi

[stevendbeard · 6/10 · 30 January 2015]

I saw "Project Almanac", starring Jonny Weston-Taken 3, Chasing Mavericks; Sofia Black-D'Elia-Gossip Girl_tv, Skins_tv; Sam Lerner-The Goldbergs_tv, Suburgatory_tv and Allen Evangelista-Brooklyn Nine- Nine_t.v., The Secret Life of the American Teenager_t.v.

This is a teen/time travel/shaky camera combination that pretty much works, except for the shaky camera part. Maybe it's just me, but I'm getting a little tired of this hand-held , shaky camera style of movie. All through the film you will hear one character or another say something like, "We need to record everything! Are you still recording?" Anyway, Jonny plays a shy high school whiz kid that is hoping to go to MIT on a scholarship. Sofia plays the girl of his dreams that he is afraid to talk to, for fear of rejection. Sam and Allen are his best buds. It seems that Jonny's father was also good in science and hid some plans for a time machine in the basement, just before he died. Jonny and friends happen upon the blueprints to said time machine and assemble a working model and that's when the fun begins. It starts with little trips and little things, such as going back and passing a test, or maybe stopping a bully, or even winning the lottery. They also make a rule that no one will ever use the machine alone, that they will always go together as a team. Then someone notices a few changes because of their time jumps. They appear to have caused a ripple effect or butterfly effect-wait a minute, that is a different movie-and Jonny decides to try to correct them by jumping on his own. Being a science whiz kid, Jonny should know that breaking the rules is never a good thing when it comes to time travel. It's rated "PG-13" for language and sexual content-no nudity-and has a running time of 1 hour & 46 minutes. I don't think that I would buy it on DVD-If it was not the shaky camera style, I would have probably liked it more-but it would be alright, as a rental.

Stupid kids,stupid ideas,stupid waste of time - MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD

[dna-1138 · 1/10 · 13 May 2015]

5 annoying students find out how to build a time machine with some car batteries and an Xbox....during the first test, a toy car ends up welded into a wall. They decide to try it on themselves...just as they're about to "jump" the leader warns them they might explode. They do it anyway, and use time travel to get better answers on their tests, and to get girls, win the lottery,humiliate the school bully, and get back stage passes to an Imagine Dragons gig. Someone they know dies on a random plane crash, so the leader goes back in time to say hi to his dad, who died 10 years previously, and destroys the time machine.It ends abruptly. The audience walk away, wishing they also had a time machine so they could go back and stop everyone involved in the making of this nonsense.

One of the best found footage films of all time!

[mattdkieffer · 10/10 · 14 October 2016]

If you do not like found footage or time travel then this movie is not for you. This is a found footage suspense movie. It honestly has the perfect amount of everything. Romance, action, suspense... it even gets a little scary at times.

The character development is really good, the actors did a really good job, and overall this is just a well put together time travel movie. If you like The Butterfly Effect, or Source Code (where the theme is fixing events within a time sequence) then this NEEDS to be added to your watch list.

Why this movie got bad reviews: People generally don't like found footage films; people also overthink the time line. No time travel movie can make perfect sense (look at The Terminator).

If you have an open mind, this movie will be entertaining, interesting, funny, and suspenseful.

I would go back in time to see this... maybe I already did.

[AustinOswald · 6/10 · 28 January 2015]

I would go back in time to watch this...maybe I already did. This film was exactly what I thought it would be, but better. I just want to start with the screenplay. May I just say, the writing was brilliant for a teen film. Keen and witty, Andrew Deutschman and Jason Pagan are absolutely perfect together. I hope to see more screenplays from them in the future. Now, the acting was decent, but I'm not going to criticize it too much because these actors are all pretty new to the silver screen. Although these actors were inexperienced, they had great chemistry and so everything seemed to click. Since this was more of a teen film, it's really easy for you to get lost in its brilliance. It wasn't confusing or anything. I mean the story was easy to follow, but it's just hard to review. Honestly, from a teen's perspective, I loved it, but this isn't just a film for teens necessarily. All of the adults in the audience seemed to like it too. In fact, there were a lot of references and allusions included in the movie which targeted the adult viewers. The only thing wrong was that there were also a lot of references and allusions to current music, movies, and popular culture, so the adult viewers couldn't really connect with the characters as much. Overall, the movie had ingenious writing, stunning special effects, adequate acting, and an amazing structure. As a teen, I give this film 9/10 stars.

Very flawed film that squanders its potential.

[resolve-239-859515 · 3/10 · 14 February 2015]

After seeing the trailer to this film I thought what a fantastic idea and great story this would be. The potential for greatness was evident.

Sadly, the film failed to live up to what it could have been: A great thriller and sci-fi classic.

The "shaky cam" style of the film was overdone and nauseating at times. I feel that the story could have been far better served by shooting it traditionally or at least limiting the use of the "shaky cam." The story has far too many plot holes and flaws and contradictions to be believable or even enjoyable. Again, such a wasted potential. It could have been so much more.

For instance, the main characters express that the reason they built the time machine was not about the money yet one of the first things they do is go back in time to win the Lottery. They could have sold the technology to a global "Microsoft" type corporation and become billionaires and helped to further the advancement of mankind however this group decides to use the time machine for their own selfish and ultimately stupid ends.

I ask you, if you had a time machine at your disposal, what would you use it to do or change? avert disasters? save lives? See your loved ones again? The protagonists in this film use it to:pass an exam, pick up girls, stand up to a bully and go to a concert. All things that they could have done without a time machine.

And speaking of the main characters, again they are badly written and flawed. Right from the start they are portrayed as a group of bumbling fools that mess up at every turn. It is really hard to believe that these clowns had the brains to build a time machine.

As an example, with all the knowledge of the future at their disposal they still manage to Not win the Lottery through sheer ineptness. It also takes them about 5 attempts to pass that chemistry exam, having to travel back in time multiple times. Certainly not the bright minds that you would expect to create such a revolutionary invention (even if the plans were already there for them).

I could go on and on about the numerous flaws and mistakes that make no sense at all, and believe me the list is exhaustive. But instead I will just say what a disappointment this film was. The potential for greatness was there and yet it was squandered hopelessly through bad writing, poor camera work and nonsensical plot-holes and poor character development.

I could not recommend this movie to anyone. What a waste...

Did pretty well with such a low budget

[davidjr2008 · 7/10 · 28 May 2015]

The film started off very predictable and poorly acted, but by the middle of the movie it really started to redeem its self , I am not a big fan of found footage kind of gives me a headache , but I enjoyed it from about 30 mins in through the end . I was conflicted I was not to sure if I liked it or hated it but The ending wrapped up everything very well it was impressive. After reflecting I decided to rate it a 7/10 for a few reasons most of the actors did well the characters evolved well. I really love science fiction, I don't think I have ever seen one science fiction movie I rated under a 5/10.

The thing about this movie is the budget was only 12 million so you have to kind of lower your expectations. I would recommend checking it out if your bored. Rent it on DVD , do not purchase.