Project Almanac (2015) review

I’m really not that big a fan of found footage films and the biggest reason for this is because most of the films of this genre come from my least favorite film genre in general, horror. I’ll admit that I haven’t actually watched a lot of these found footage horror films but to me they’re basically all the same thing anyway so I don’t really bother with them at all.  So when it comes to found footage films, I’m much more interested in the ones that move away from the horror genre to do something different with the found footage format. And that was exactly the case with 2012’s ‘Chronicle’, a film that opted for a science-fiction based superhero origin story with the end result being what is easily one of the best found footage films ever made, if not the best. This year sees the release of the latest non-horror found footage film, ‘Project Almanac’, whose story is based around the concept of time travel. And well, seeing how my favorite film of all time is the time travel classic ‘Back to the Future’, you can bet that I was really looking forward to this film. And overall ‘Project Almanac’… is good. If anything, it’s at least better than the 36% rating it currently has on Rotten Tomatoes. I’m not saying that it’s the absolute best film in its genre, and it’s certainly not going to be a game-changer for it either. However, in the end, it’s at least entertaining for what it is and as far as I’m concerned, that’s all that matters.

High School student and aspiring inventor David Raskin (Jonny Weston) gets accepted to MIT, but doesn’t get the scholarship from them, which is a problem given his family’s current financial status. Things get worse when he learns that his mother Kathy (Amy Landecker) is planning to sell their house so that the money can go towards David’s school tuition. Not wanting that to happen, David, along with the help of his sister Christina (Virginia Gardner), and his best friends Adam (Allen Evangelista) and Quinn (Sam Lerner), try to find a way for David to earn a different scholarship. They come across an old camera belonging to David’s father, who had died when he was just seven, and are shocked when they see David, as he currently is now, in footage of his seventh birthday party. Investigating further into the matter, they soon come across plans for a temporal relocation device… in other words, a time machine. They soon build it and, along with bringing in David’s crush Jessie (Sofia Black D’Elia) into the group, use it to go back in time for personal gain. However, after David uses it by himself to further his relationship with Jessie, a series of drastic changes begin to occur as a result of the group’s repeated  with the past, resulting in David trying to figure out a way to get things back to the way they were.

Like I said in the intro, don’t go into this expecting something revolutionary as far as time travel/science-fiction films go because you’re really not going to get that with this film as it’s fairly straight-forward as far as the genre is concerned. Still, I feel that the film at least knows that and, as a result, doesn’t try to be something it’s not. It’s just a fun teen sci-fi film with time travel. It does take a little while for the film to get going but once it does and the main characters build the time machine, that’s where ‘Project Almanac’ really shines. The best scenes in the film are when the main quintet uses the time machine to change the past in order to better their own lives which, let’s be honest, we’d probably all do too if we were in their situation. But at the same time, as you would expect from a time travel story, they do eventually realize that there are consequences to changing the past and while the film’s overall tone does sort of change once things start going wrong, I still found myself very engrossed by the story. As far as the film’s script goes, I think it’s safe to say that you’re bound to find a whole bunch of plot holes and gaps in logic if you really start to think about it. But really, that’s the case with pretty much every time travel story. To quote Jeff Daniels’ character from ‘Looper’, “This time travel crap, just fries your brain like an egg...”

One of the best parts about ‘Chronicle’ was its trio of leads, who had such great camaraderie with one another while also maintaining likable personalities which made them incredibly engaging characters. I’m happy to say that this is also the case with ‘Project Almanac’s leads… for the most part, anyway. I mean, they do use the time machine for selfish reasons and personal gain but that doesn’t really mean that they’re 100% unlikable. Like the trio from ‘Chronicle’, they all have excellent camaraderie with one another, which is one of the main reasons why I was so engrossed with the film’s story in the first place. In short, all five leads do a really solid job here, with the biggest standout of the bunch being Jonny Weston in the role of David. Weston does a great job at making David both very likable and relatable as well. Given his interests in inventing, David is basically a modern-day Peter Parker just without the spider superpowers. Hell, he even has his own ‘Gwen Stacy/Mary Jane’ in Jessie, who he slowly but surely starts to connect with as the film goes on. Weston and Sofia Black D’Elia do have really solid chemistry and the romance between their characters is pretty nice, so that’s a plus.

Overall, you shouldn’t go into ‘Project Almanac’ expecting something along the lines of ‘Back to the Future’ as far as deep, game-changing science fiction films are concerned because you won’t get that here. It’s fairly straight-forward as far as time-travel films are concerned and if you do start to look into the science of this film, I’m pretty sure that you’re bound to find gaps in its logic. But really, given the fact that this usually happens with a lot of time travel stories, even the great ones like ‘Looper’ and yes, even ‘Back to the Future’ at times, it’s not really too much of a problem here. Simply put, it’s just a fun little teen found-footage film that mainly benefits from a bunch of likable leads that have great camaraderie, and in some cases romantic chemistry, with each other. As far as both found footage films and the films of the ‘dead movie’ month of January are concerned, this is definitely one of the better films of both these categories. It’s not going to reinvent the genre of time travel/science fiction movies but that’s okay because it knows what it is; a popcorn flick (after all this is produced by the king of popcorn flicks, Michael Bay) and a pretty dang entertaining one at that.

Rating: 3.5/5

Looper (2012) review

 

In 2005, two things happened when the movie 'Brick' was made. Director Rian Johnson made his directorial debut and star Joseph Gordon-Levitt established himself as a premier actor of his generation, along with films like 'Inception', '(500) Days of Summer', and 'The Dark Knight Rises'. The two reunite again for Looper, a sci-fi thriller that certainly makes all of the right moves when it comes to its writing. Like with Christopher Nolan's Inception back in 2010, Looper is one of the best written and most original films to come out in a long time with a story that is not only compelling, but brings much emotional substance to the table as well. It doesn't ignore the heavy material that it's focusing on and is a film that will leave you talking about it long after it is over.

In the year 2074, time travel will have been invented but it is immediately deemed outlawed. The only ones who use it are criminal organizations who utilize the system in order to rid themselves of their targets. To do that, they send them back 30 years to the year 2044 where hired hit men known as Loopers eliminate the targets, thereby erasing them from existence. Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is one of these Loopers and like the others, he lives the good life on the one condition that he must never let any of his targets escape. But Joe soon faces a huge problem when his latest target (Bruce Willis) is none other than himself 30 years from now. Hesitating, Joe allows his older self to escape and is now forced on the run from his employers as he tries to fix his dilemma, even if it means killing his older self in the process.

So why did Joe's employers send him his own future self to kill? Well, this is a process known as 'closing the loop' that the crime syndicates eventually use on all of their Loopers in order to terminate their contracts. This is some pretty heavy stuff the movie deals with, and Johnson does not hesitate to illustrate the effect of this situation on these hit men. When a Looper 'closes his loop', they never realize that they killed their own selves at first because their future self's face is covered by a hood like all of their other targets. They will treat it like it's any other kill and won't realize what they did until it's too late. In the case of Joe, his future self arrived without a hood so he quickly realized who his latest target was. But then Johnson throws a curve ball because apparently the usual reaction that Loopers have when their Loop is closed is quite surprising at first. You would think that they would be horrified by the fact that they just literally just killed themselves, but instead they respond by celebrating about it, even when they will eventually be on the receiving end of the blunderbuss shot later on.

On another note, Johnson also makes sure that Willis is well-utilized. This isn't some case where Willis' role feels more like a cameo and he is given nothing to do. He plays a key part in the story, as Old Joe is on a mission to take out the one person who will one day become the crime boss known as 'The Rainmaker' in order to fix the future. We also see what drives him to do this, having had a wife but then losing her because of the Rainmaker. Both Willis and Gordon-Levitt are excellent and JGL very much channels Willis in this movie. Aside from his own performance, the movie makes us buy that JGL's character grows up to become Willis, both by a key montage in the film where we see how he ended up being sent back to the year 2044 and of course all of those prosthetics and makeup done on him. Admittedly it's not perfect, but you get used to it after a while.

Amidst of all this violence, the film also has a lot of emotional substance behind it, primarily when Joe meets Sara (Emily Blunt), a single mother living on a farm with her son Cid (Pierce Gagnon). Aside from later serving a key part in the story, their whole back story helps bring a human touch to this story, and the movie doesn't let CGI overpower the story and character development. We get a clear idea of this universe, where crime syndicates run without any problems from police forces. The whole time-travel aspect of the film is one that is given little explanation, but even the script makes fun of the fact that, when you get down to it, all of this time-travel stuff is just too complicated and, as Jeff Daniels (a great turn here as Joe's boss Abe) puts it, it “can just fry your brain like an egg”.

Looper is one of those movies that will leave an impression on you as soon as the credits roll. Easily one of the smartest and most well-written films of the year, Looper continues to establish director Rian Johnson's reputation as one of the top up-and-coming filmmakers after only his third film. Of course, it also continues to establish Joseph Gordon-Levitt as one of the best actors of his generation, pairing him up with one of Hollywood's most well-established leading men with great success. It's a film that hits you with the deep question of what would you do if you were faced with the situation of making a decision that will affect your whole life and doesn't sidestep around it. It's a film I highly recommend seeing and has my vote for a 'Best Original Screenplay' nomination at this year's Oscars.

 

Rating: 5/5!