Project Almanac

Dean Israelite’s sci-fi flick has already proven controversial, as initial promotional trailers used real footage of a fatal 1994 B-52 crash. It appears that questionable judgement extends to the film too: the movie’s wit, charismatic cast and nice twist on a tired genre are overshadowed by a nauseating visual style.
Jonny Weston (Taken 3, Chasing Mavericks) plays David, a high-school student and MIT hopeful who builds a time machine with his five friends, who all start using it to rewrite their own history. In a realistic but not particularly endearing twist, the teens begin using their newfound power not to right huge historical evils, but as a means of extreme adolescent wish fulfillment, manipulating their academic and social lives – and wreaking havoc in the process.
A found footage conceit that is only slightly justified in the final frames mainly serves to irritate, as the ugly and unfocused camera work proves literally eyeache-inducing. Not content to keep his jumping shots for frenetic scenes where disorientation could heighten the action, Israelite uses it constantly, during simple exposition scenes and high school cafeteria sequences. There’s no artistic reason for this – unless the joke’s on us and it’s all a visual metaphor for the film’s shaky conceit. Skipping from one time-travel theory to the next, it ends up a clumsy blend of Interstellar and Back To The Future.
There are small pleasures to be found, as the characters and their immature desires are funny, relatable and fully-rounded, and time travel becomes a lesson for teens who rarely – if ever – learn from their mistakes. Hopefully Israelite will – and keep that camera steady next time.