Project Almanac

Audience Reviews

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Apr 22, 2019 It's one of those found footage movies that does have some really bad acting (and lacks a little in cgi) but what caught me was the great story and characters. See more

Apr 18, 2019 Project Almanac has its few share of thrills, but it has too many problems that makes it a hard movie to recommend. The first problem that I had with the film is the found footage camerawork. Found footage filmmaking can work and there are certainly movies that benefits from it (Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, Cloverfield), however, there are films that uses found footage as a gimmick and to make their films cheaper. Project Almanac is definitely one of them. Found footage movies are supposed to feel like the movie was homemade, but Project Almanac looks like it was edited professionally. Their camera can even pick up audio from two characters talking to each other from a distance. There were times where the camera would shake to make it feel like it's found footage, but the glitch effects were much more irritating. It's annoying when characters have to justify the movie's use of found footage by saying obligatory dialogues, such as "from now on, film everything" and "we could film all of our jumps so that if we mess something up, we know what we did wrong". Honestly, Project Almanac would've been a lot better if it wasn't found footage because it wouldn't require so much suspension of disbelief. Found footage doesn't work in this movie because it strains credulity and fails to be immersive. The characters mentioned that they want to document their time-travel experiment, but they also document themselves breaking into a school to steal hydrogen. To quote one of the characters in the movie, "you don't have to film everything, Chris." Project Almanac requires you to switch off your brain to go along for the ride because nothing about the movie makes sense, from the time-travel logic to the decisions made by the main character. Now we have our second problem. The main character was initially established as a highly ambitious inventor who wants to get in to MIT. He even built a device that would allow him to control a drone with his fingers. But then his entire motivation is to impress a girl, which leads him to make increasingly stupid decisions, making it harder to sympathize with the character. I know you're bad at talking to girls and picking up signals, but maybe it would be less risky to talk to her again in the present instead of going back in time to approach her differently. The third problem I have with the movie is the pacing. The movie is an hour and forty-five minutes long, but it feels like a two-hour movie. I did enjoy the first act where they were building the time machine, and even the second act where they experiment with the time machine, but the movie spends a really long time with the characters building the time machine that it took forever to get to the second act, and forever to get to the third act because the Lollapalooza scene was so long. The movie fails to write memorable characters, who are no more than teen archetypes. The only character with the most development is David (the main character). In this movie, the characters can only go so far back in time because going further than they should would lead to the characters being stuck in the past. But I feel like the characters are squandering the potential of the time machine because they use it to pass their chemistry test, win the lottery, get revenge on bullies, raise their popularity in high school, and watch Imagine Dragons at a concert. Who the fuck would want to see Imagine Dragons live? A minor complaint of mine is the numerous references to better time-travel movies, such as Terminator, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Looper, and even Timecop. It feels like a person trying to be smart by quoting Einstein or Shakespeare. It's pretentious and shows how lackluster Project Almanac really is. If these geeks have seen those movies, how are they unaware of the ripple effect until a disaster happens? Michael Bay produced this movie, but his style doesn't really rub off on this movie like it did with TMNT. Overall, Project Almanac is watchable, but forgettable. The movie does have some fun and the chemistry between the characters are believable, but the irritating found footage work, plot holes, and lack of memorable characters makes Project Almanac a disposable time-travel movie. See more

Leia M Apr 7, 2019 I like B grade sci-fi. I like good music and clever camera. The writers chose the perfect time to pay homage to Cloverfield. This would appeal to people who like the 'Last Starfighter' See more

Mar 21, 2019 So underrated it's ridiculous

Finn W Feb 11, 2019 Solid enough teen time travel movie, found footage was annoying though

George W Jan 12, 2019 Creative and actionpacked.

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Project Almanac

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