Project Almanac (2015)

A group of teens discover secret plans of a time machine, and construct one. However, things start to get out of control.

Director:

Dean Israelite

Writers:

Jason Pagan (as Jason Harry Pagan), Andrew Deutschman

Stars:

Amy Landecker, Sofia Black-D'Elia, Virginia Gardner

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jonny Weston	...	David Raskin
Sofia Black-D'Elia	...	Jessie Pierce
Sam Lerner	...	Quinn Goldberg
Allen Evangelista	...	Adam Le
Virginia Gardner	...	Christina Raskin
Amy Landecker	...	Kathy Raskin
Gary Weeks	...	Ben Raskin
Macsen Lintz	...	David, Age 7
Gary Grubbs	...	Dr. Lou
Michelle DeFraites	...	Sarah Nathan
Curry Stone	...	Male Student
Jamila Thompson	...	Marina
Katie Garfield	...	Liv
Hillary Harley	...	Blonde
Courtney Bowers	...	Jess' Friend

Storyline

As a group of friends discover plans for a time machine, they build it and use it to fix their problems and for personal gain. But as their future falls apart with disasters, and they come to realize the irreversible ripple effects caused by their time travels, they must decide to fix this once and for all.

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Plot Keywords:

time travel | teenager | alternate timeline | time machine | race against time | 

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Taglines:

To fix the past, would you risk your future?

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Genres:

Drama | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for some language and sexual content

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

30 January 2015 (USA)

Also Known As:

Almanac

Filming Locations:

Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$12,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$8,500,000, 1 February 2015, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$22,331,028, 22 March 2015

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$32,248,241

Company Credits

Production Co:

Insurge Pictures,Platinum Dunes,MTV Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

106 min

Sound Mix:

Datasat Dolby Digital Dolby Surround 7.1 SDDS Dolby Atmos

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

One of David's friends can be heard talking about the sci-fi/action film Timecop (1994). Both "Timecop" and "Project Almanac" involve the year 2004 as well as traveling exactly 10 years into the past. Coincidentally, 2004 is ten years in the future in "Timecop" since it was made in 1994 and in "Project Almanac" 2004 is ten years in the past since 2014 was the year it was filmed.

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Goofs

While building the time machine, the friends chatter about becoming "Doctor Who" - but that is the title of the TV series, its hero is known as "the Doctor".

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Quotes

Jessie Pierce: You know what I would've done if I was smart enough to build a time machine? I would've gone back in time to meet you sooner.

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Connections

References Argo (2012)

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Soundtracks

Fantasy
Written by Elizabeth Plapinger & Alexander Max Hershenow
Performed by MS MR
Courtesy of Columbia Records
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing

User Reviews

Won't Reinvent The Genre, But It Is Entertaining

I liked Project Almanac. It didn't necessarily excite me. And I did scratch my head a few times. But ultimately, I liked it. It had an interesting, if slow moving, story. It stayed grounded, or at least tried to, and did it's very best to legitimize time travel as a possibility, even if it doesn't do a very good job of actually explaining the whole thing. Certainly some things are silly, like explaining being able to control the time machine with a cell phone as cell phones 'having enough power to put a rocket in space', but these don't really take away from a lot of the fun dealing with the time travel element.

The story is pretty simple, but actually feels heart felt. David, a genius level teenager newly accepted to MIT, finds himself short on the money to pay his tuition there. This inadvertently leads him to discover an unfinished time machine his absent father left hidden in his basement. While it takes a while for the time travel elements to ramp up, there is fun to be had in seeing these kids build, experiment, and ultimately successfully travel through time. The film does a good job in allowing us to escape certain illogical elements, like how a group of teens with a fairly limited budget could create a fully functioning time machine, much less create one when no one else on earth seemingly could. David and his buddy Adam are already established as being geniuses from the moment the film begins. So, it's not much of a leap that together they could figure out how to complete the already crafted instructions and blueprints sitting in front of them. You could even say there's legitimacy to the use of the found footage style they went for. They even comment on the use of the camera, which at least shows they recognize that it's there.

However, despite some explanation that helps solidify the camera's constant presence, the film , like so many found footage films, would have benefited from simply being shot like a typical narrative. The film even goes the lengths to, strangely enough, be somewhere in between. We see edits that don't make sense for someone whose recording and we have music play over things like a montage. It's just bizarre to see and hear these things play out over a film that is supposed to pretend to be found off camcorder footage. And these production elements aren't bad, they're just out of place and show the film could have benefited from simply eschewing the found footage style all together. There's also some head scratching moments throughout that can be eye-roll-inducing, but I tend to be able to suspend my disbelief, so it didn't bother me as much.

The film overall isn't one I'd probably tell people to run out and see. But I'd certainly tell them it's not a bad film. Far from it, it's a surprise in the sub genre of found footage. And while it doesn't reach the heights of Chronicle, which I consider to be the peak of found footage, I do think it's one of the better found footage films.