Susan Granger’s review of “Project Almanac” (Paramount Pictures)
Found footage and an undiscovered basement laboratory fuel this teen time-travel adventure.
When socially awkward high-school science whiz David Raskin (Jonny Weston) is searching in the attic for a project to propel a scholarship grant to attend MIT, he discovers a bewildering image from his seventh birthday party on his late father’s video camera.
Convinced that his father invented a temporal displacement device, David and nerdy buddies – Adam (Allen Evangelista) and Quinn (Sam Lerner) – are determined to follow his dad’s detailed instructions to replicate it – with David’s giggly younger sister, Christina (Ginny Gardner), documenting the process.
But their increasingly incredible experiments desperately need a stronger power source, so they hook up to a car battery that belongs to pretty, popular Jessie (Sofia Black-D’Elia), on whom David has a secret crush. And sparks fly as they time-travel.
Predictably, their first ‘jump’ is a chemistry exam ‘do over,’ another is to wreak revenge on bullies and score at the Lottery. But when they frolic at the music festival Lollapalooza, having bought used backstage passes on E-Bay, something goes awry. Blame it on ripples from The Butterfly Effect.
Although they pledged never to time-travel alone, guilt-riddled David does – with disastrous results.
Screenwriters Andrew Deutschman and Jason Harry Pagan, along with novice director Dean Israelite, concentrate on the prep work, more than the consequences. What could have been a poignant reunion between David and his dad is almost dismissed, along with other provocative opportunities.
Among other pop culture allusions, the teens refer to the sci-fi thriller “Looper” and “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.”
But the hand-held camera work is formulaically shaky and the clichéd jump cuts are distracting. Produced by Michael Bay, this film, not surprisingly, has been gathering dust on-the-shelf for a year.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Project Almanac” is a frenetic 4. “Back to the Future” it isn’t.
