Project Almanac

"Project Almanac"

Watched English movie "Project Almanac".

Directed by Dean Israelite. Written by Jason Harry Pagan; Andrew Deutschman. Produced by Andrew Form; Bradley Fuller; Michael Bay. Cinematography by Andrew Form; Bradley Fuller; Michael Bay. It stars 

Johnny Weston, Sofia Black D'Elia, Virginia Gardner, Sam Lerner, Adam Evangelista, Amy Landecker. I watched this movie on Amazon Prime on 1st Jan 2022. The movie is about 1 hour 45 min long and was released in 2015.

David is admitted to MIT but doesn't get scholarship. His mom decides to sell their house. David stumbles on a video of his 7th birthday in which there is an image of his present day self. Exploring his basement he discovers research of his dead dad. He, his sister and two friends start building a time machine. 

Is dad's work really about time machine? Will they succeed? Will they change the past? Will it change the future?

Every story about time travel raises the same question. If you go back in time and change something, what would it's effects be and how would it change the present and future? This movie also tries to address the same and recommends an extreme solution. 

Director handles the story well. It's important not to confuse audience between past,  present, altered past, altered present and so on. Director manages it well. 

Johnny plays the protagonist well. Sofia plays his lady love. She looks beautiful and acts well. Others play supporting roles. 

Entire movie is shot using a hand held camera by one of the character, mostly the sister, so it gets the informal feel but the constantly moving, swaying and shaking camera is taxing on eyes. It's like you are sitting in a rollercoaster all the time. You don't enjoy it. Paul Greengrass has used this technique effectively but it didn't irritate, this one does. 

This movie recouped the production cost more that 2 times over. So we can call it a commercial succes. 

Watch if you don't mind very shaky camera.