[critical] PROJECT ALMANAC

PROJECT ALMANAC reports to the cinema said of found footage (found record). A kind of fashion for several years which is to show via a subjective view images from videos more or less amateurs. Used in the cinema of horror and terror (popularized by The Blair Witch Project in 1999, and then updated at the end of the years 2000 with Rec and Paranormal Activity), but also in the teen movie (movie teen) renewed by Project X (2012). PROJECT ALMANAC seemed to be staying in the same regard as the latter, but relating this time to the science-fiction. The result is unfortunately far from the level of its predecessors, PROJECT ALMANAC falls into all the traps and the errors that must not be done in terms of found footage.

And if you had a second chance… What would you do ? What would you change ? How far would you go ? Four teenagers make a discovery that will change their lives : a machine with infinite possibilities… but the consequences may be irreversible. Will you be ready to live and relive the experience of your life ?

To justify its implementation in a particular scene, PROJECT ALMANAC is going to the most simple. Christina (Virginia Gardner), a young high school girl, has a habit of filming with his camcorder her daily life as well as the experiences of his brother, David (Johnny Weston). When with two friends they find in their basement plans of the government (which we do not know in the end not really what they were doing there) in order to create a machine to travel back in time, the small group decides to launch out in the manufacture of this machine and filming absolutely all of their trials. In turn, the characters succeed one another both in front of and behind the camera. However, this cannot be justified, and this is where the big error of the film, it is to create the stage where it can’t be. On several occasions the character holding the camera will zoom in on details, or a variety of people who turn for no reason directly at the machine. And by its approach to the found footage, PROJECT ALMANAC repeated the same mistakes in its staging, and much more, that could be found in Cloverfield (2008), that J. J Abrams exceeded by its management of empathy. If these small details can go unnoticed to some, it has to be noted the use issue of of a soundtrack extra diégétique (outside the plot) and sound effects that have no place to be, as to suggest a short deafness of the protagonists after their first attempt. Not to mention the improbable quality of the sound, always crisp and audible, even under the most noisy. With such choices in contradiction with the principle of found footage a classic scene would have been better.

”By its approach to the found footage, Project Almanac repeated the same mistakes in its implementation stage, and even more, that the disappointing Cloverfield.”

Unfortunately, this “detail” is not the only problem in the film. If Project X took on its full aspect teen movie delusional and immature (what was able to integrate Chronicle into a fantastic universe), PROJECT ALMANAC can’t even begin to entertain and more bored than anything else. The fault to a scenario without great interest. Because after being focused on a long discovery of the machine, and then on the first tests of the time travel, PROJECT ALMANAC rocking in a love story uninteresting between David and Jessie (Sofia Black D’elia), the ” bomb high school “. It is from this romance, and after a sequence always as absurd and the music festival Lollapalooza, as the film dealt with (finally ?) the consequences of time-travel : to change something from the past impacts on the future. In the end the only footage entertaining will be the first use of the machine in order to solve personal problems of the characters. As ironing a mark missed, or revenge of the bully of the school. Far too little to keep us attentive.

The other outputs of the February 25, 2015

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