“Project Almanac” surely lives up to its rather scientific title with its undivided ingenuity among its plot, characters and severe twists. Never is there a traumatizing moment that fails to keep the viewer on the edge of his or her seat, for this film throws a relentless number of surprises to keep the plot consistent. The movie centers upon one of the most desirable objects of mankind: a time machine. This enchanting device gives the plot much of an auxiliary atmosphere with its relation with young adolescents today to travel back to the past to fix mistakes, achieve goals and better the future.
The movie starts in modern day United States where main character, David Raskin, a 17-year-old brainiac inventor, gets accepted to MIT, but is unable to afford its tuition. To pay off the tuition, David has his friends and family go through the belongings of his late father, Ben Raskin. Upon the search, they find an old home video of David’s seventh birthday party where they see present David in the reflection of a mirror in the video. They later find the blueprints of a temporal relocation device that Ben was developing for the United States military, and use the available resources to build a functional time machine. The high schoolers decide to use the machine for a number of things including standing up to bullies, scoring better grades, falling in love, and the most classic yet—winning the lottery. Eventually, the constant travel to the past creates a ripple effect on the rest of humanity with tragic events that not only affect the world, but the main characters’ lives, and it is up to David to fix these problems.
The movie had many positive points that enhanced much of the film to the full extent. Categorized under science fiction and thriller, this film completely identifies under those terms. Specifically, the use of special effects really lives up to the advanced technology of today, as a future film. The blasts of light and audacious color when travelling adds to the common belief of what truly happens when using a time machine. The movie is filled with action in each scene, never displaying a dull moment. The characters energize the movie some more with romance involved. It is an asset used in the plot and gives the movie its PG-13 rating. The wishes the characters desire with the use of the time machine can easily relate with young teens today, giving the film an essence of realism.
Although the movie incorporates many strong elements, it showed some room for improvement as well. The acting wasn’t very strong and considering their roles were a major factor to the plot, they did not meet a satisfactory point to complete the full effect of the movie. This caused an unfortunate, slight declination in intensity of the action filled fun.
Overall the movie really lived up to its expectations with its excitement and audacious surrounding despite its lack in acting. “Project Almanac” is a decent production worth seeing for its action packed palooza.
Hiba’s Rating: 3.5/5
