Project Almanac (2015)

While some women just can not get enough of romantic comedies, I have that with movies about time travel. I still have a list of movies I haven’t seen which have some sort of time in them. When I heard about this movie, I could not restrain my curiosity. Not every time travel movie is good of course, but because I’m a big fan of the concept in movies, I can easily forgive some rough edges in them.

17-year-old David Raskin (Jonny Weston) has a dream of studying at MIT. He is well-versed technically and makes a flashy film to prove how much he wants to study there. He is happy to hear he is admitted, but he then realizes that he can do it, because he simply does not have the finances to pay for it. Together with his friends, he decides to go through old stuff from his father (who was an inventor), who passed away when he was 7 years old. They find an old camera and David discovers something bizarre on it: In the video of his birthday when he was a kid, he sees the current version of himself in a couple of frames. Further examination of the house leads to a great discovery: A machine that allows you to time travel.

The film feels similar to movies like +1 Chronicle, where a bunch of teenagers have to deal with something super natural, and although they initially don’t see the potential they use it to do typical things associated with their age. In this case they use the machine to win the lottery, to get good results at school or to cheaply go to a festival by buying “all access” passes on Ebay a few days after the event and travelling back. All these events are portrayed with a lot of energy and give a feeling of adventure. Of course, time travel is not without its problems and here it leads to differences of opinion within the group. Although this film received a lot of negative reviews, I enjoyed it a lot. The group of young actors have a convincing relationship with each other, the situations they end up in are occasionally exciting, but also frequently funny and I could not wait to find out how David showed up in that video. If you find the trailer interesting, then I suggest to give this movie a shot.