“Time travel… ending with the same plotline continuations as the Jurassic Park series.”
Alright, so…
To begin explaining this film, I’d have to learn some theory of relativity. But I’m going to somehow explain it in a way that everyone will understand.
Project Almanac is the simple story of a bunch of teenagers—okay, well, maybe just one—completely messing things up.
Simply. Of course.
Now, the concept behind the film goes much deeper than that, and I’m sure it was probably meant to go in a whole different direction.
Anyway, let’s start from the beginning, shall we?
The Story
We begin with David Raskin (Jonny Weston), a teenage boy who’s “graduating high school.” (LOL, that’s a joke—he looks like he’s a junior in college. But let’s not get into the technical details of age and nonsense that people never really pay attention to in movies.)
David’s a simple man:
He sees science, he likes.
He sees women, he disrupts the time-space continuum to get with her.
Naturally, right?
The movie starts with David trying to submit (or, I guess, create would be a better term) a video for MIT—which, if you don’t know, is an extremely well-known school for extremely smart people.
David invents a flying craft-like machine that is controlled by hand movements—meaning, it’s motion-controlled and somehow hooked up to his phone. (I’m not even going to attempt to explain how that works because I don’t major in mechanical engineering. Thanks, though.)
David then attempts to let his little beast loose outside, but they lose signal when it flies too high. A couple of seconds later, it comes crashing back down, smashing into a nearby car. The video ends with David saying:
“The experiment was a complete success.”
And then…
Shit hits the fan.
Not literally, of course. That would be disgusting.
David waits 37 days for his acceptance letter from MIT.
It finally comes.
Offering him an amazing scholarship of… $5,000.
Out of $40,000.
That’s like giving a homeless person 15 cents to buy a $1 hotdog.
And no, this wasn’t just some dramatically low number for the sake of the film—no, no, haha—this was clearly saying something about college funds nowadays and how much you really need to get into a school.
Anyway.
David becomes distressed. Depressed. End of the movie.
Just kidding. That would be terrible, and I wouldn’t be writing this.
David does get a little depressed, though.
Enter Christina Raskin (Virginia Gardner), his unnaturally attractive sister who, for some reason, is getting bullied in high school?
What the shit kind of high school standards did they have?
(You’ll understand once you see her bully.)
Chris—as she’s called in the movie—was David’s sister. (I think I just established that.) She was pretty much filming the entire movie, except for the 20% at the end when it was big brother’s turn to film his mistakes.
She was a pretty legit sister, I might add. Completely unrealistic, but hey—no sister would ever be that involved in her brother’s life.
- Supports everything he does
- Always hangs out with his friends
- Leaves her own friends to go sit with him at lunch
Props to her for showing everyone that no matter how many times your brother screws up time itself, stand next to him—but not too close, or you might… but not too close, or you might… but not too close, or you might…
Jessie Pierce (Sofia Black-D’Elia)
“The hottie with the body.”
Had to say it. Was in good taste. Shut up.
Jessie was David’s reason.
Let’s all stop and think about this for a second.
David.
Went back in time.
To get a girl.
And…
When he came back,
He didn’t want to fix things the right way.
Because he loved her so much, he didn’t think straight about anything else.
If that’s not blind, pure love, I don’t know what is.
What I’m saying is—David took his friends to a huge music festival, where he and Jessie had a “moment.”
But David screwed it up.
So, naturally, he went back in time (by himself)—breaking the first and only rule—to have a second chance.
It did not work out.
See, teenagers messing with time might be fun at first.
But the aftereffects come back to slap you in the face.
Remember that rule about what comes around, comes back around?
Yeah, well…
We’re talking about time here.
So that shit comes back forever.
Over, and over, and over, and over…
The Theory of Time Travel (Explained Poorly)
Time.
Time is a made-up set of rules in which random people decided:
“Hey, maybe we should call these moments passing by… something.”
Then some smartass said,
“Hey, what if we could go back in time?”
Then they did.
Then.
They did.
Then.
They did.
Then.
They did.
Do you get it?
Probably not.
Alright, imagine this—
If you plant a seed and it grows in one second, then it drops more seeds.
Now we have two trees.
Then four trees.
Then eight trees.
Then millions.
Now imagine your future self sees 40 million trees growing out of control and says,
“Well, shit. Now I have to go back in time and stop myself from planting the first one.”
But by stopping yourself, you:
- Don’t bend down to plant the seed.
- The earth doesn’t sink beneath your foot.
- A worm doesn’t get crushed under a rock.
- The tree never grows.
- The city that would have been built there never exists.
And now the butterfly effect takes over.
Endless.
But no, it doesn’t stop there.
Because then you think:
“I should stop myself from ever buying the seed in the first place.”
“Or from ever waking up that morning.”
“Or from ever reading that book about plants the day before.”
Again—endless.
There. I just explained the entire movie.
The Pointless Characters
Okay, maybe that’s a little harsh.
Let’s call them “irrelevant” instead.
Quinn Goldberg (Sam Lerner)
“That guy.”
Every movie’s gotta have one. Here he is.
- The guy who tells everyone to do stupid shit.
- The laid-back onlooker.
- The shit-talker.
- The female judger.
Adam Le (Allen Evangelista)
The Secondary Scientist.
The SS, if you will.
He literally helped build the time machine, and nobody gave a shit.
David this.
David that.
Adam’s the one who:
- Came up with using batteries.
- Figured out hydrogen was needed.
- Found out the instructions were to build a time machine.
David just built it.
(Adam helped too.)
If you like movies about time travel, teenagers being unrealistic, and fun new ways to pick up chicks, give this movie a watch.
