PROJECT ALMANAC is another movie that slipped right past me.
I'd never heard of it until I came across it on Netflix and thought it sounded
interesting. As it turns out, that was a good decision, because PROJECT ALMANAC
is an excellent little film.
It's a "found footage" movie, which honestly is a little annoying at times, but I'm willing to forgive that because of all the things that work so well in it. The story centers around a high school senior who's trying to come up with a science experiment good enough to win him a scholarship to MIT. His late father, who died when the protagonist was seven years old, was an energy researcher and left behind a lot of material, including an odd machine and some schematics that intrigue the hero and his fellow nerd buddies. Turns out that the protagonist's father actually worked for DARPA, and when they build the gizmo according to the plans they have, they wind up with a working prototype of a time machine.
So what do they do with it? Well, being teenage boys, they do what most teenage boys with access to a time machine would do: they go back in time to pass tests they failed, score VIP passes to Lollapalooza, and get laid. There's a brief discussion about killing Hitler, but hey, the other stuff is more important.
Naturally, things go wrong and the movie gets considerably darker and more complicated as it goes along. There are some little holes in the plot here and there, but for the most part the script is funny and twisty and very good. The cast of young, mostly unknowns is excellent, and they're really believable as high schoolers, unlike the 25- or 30-year-olds who usually wind up with those parts. PROJECT ALMANAC is a smart, good-hearted film and much better than I really expected. Well worth watching if you get the chance.
It's a "found footage" movie, which honestly is a little annoying at times, but I'm willing to forgive that because of all the things that work so well in it. The story centers around a high school senior who's trying to come up with a science experiment good enough to win him a scholarship to MIT. His late father, who died when the protagonist was seven years old, was an energy researcher and left behind a lot of material, including an odd machine and some schematics that intrigue the hero and his fellow nerd buddies. Turns out that the protagonist's father actually worked for DARPA, and when they build the gizmo according to the plans they have, they wind up with a working prototype of a time machine.
So what do they do with it? Well, being teenage boys, they do what most teenage boys with access to a time machine would do: they go back in time to pass tests they failed, score VIP passes to Lollapalooza, and get laid. There's a brief discussion about killing Hitler, but hey, the other stuff is more important.
Naturally, things go wrong and the movie gets considerably darker and more complicated as it goes along. There are some little holes in the plot here and there, but for the most part the script is funny and twisty and very good. The cast of young, mostly unknowns is excellent, and they're really believable as high schoolers, unlike the 25- or 30-year-olds who usually wind up with those parts. PROJECT ALMANAC is a smart, good-hearted film and much better than I really expected. Well worth watching if you get the chance.
1 comment:
I'd thought about seeing this one. Now I will.
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