Terminator Genisys (2015)

The Terminator franchise has been traveling down a rocky road over the last decade or so. James Cameron's original movie and its sequel are classics, landmark entries in the action and science fiction genres that still hold up surprisingly well today. But as the franchise's copyright continually changed hands after the turn of the new millennium, Cameron's two fantastic movies were followed by a short-lived TV show and two more movies that were never any better than mediocre. So I guess someone figured that at this point, it would be as good a time as any to give the franchise a total overhaul. The result: Terminator Genisys, a disappointing hodge-podge of interesting ideas and lackluster execution that makes me long for the days when there were only two Terminator movies.

The year is 2029, and the war between Skynet and the human resistance is rapidly approaching its conclusion. A platoon of soldiers led by John Connor (Jason Clarke) stage a final offensive against a Skynet base in the ruins of Los Angeles, achieving victory but realizing that they were mere moments too late from preventing Skynet from activating their ultimate weapon to win the war: a time machine. Their investigation of the device leads them to discover that Skynet has sent a Terminator back to 1984 to assassinate John's mother Sarah (Emilia Clarke) before he is even conceived. Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) volunteers to go back and stop it, but upon his arrival in 1984, he discovers that what he has expected is totally wrong.

You would imagine that events would play out similar to the original movie, but much like Reese, you're in for a surprise. Reese is only in 1984 for a few moments before he's attacked by a shapeshifting T-1000 (Byung-hun Lee). Clearly out of his element against a seemingly unstoppable model of Terminator he's never encountered before, he only manages to escape when he's saved by Sarah and an aging T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger). The duo were anticipating Reese's arrival, and — having already intercepted the Terminator Reese was sent to fight — need him to help with their plan to avert Judgment Day and the rise of Skynet.

None of this is what Reese had expected. Sarah is far from the frail waitress John had told him she would be. Instead, she is a jaded warrior raised since childhood by a Terminator reprogrammed to protect her at all costs, a cyborg guardian she's affectionately nicknamed "Pops." It quickly becomes apparent that something has drastically altered the flow of past and future events. So drastic are these changes, in fact, that a series of clues indicates that Judgment Day will not be on August 29, 1997, as projected, but twenty years later instead.

Sarah and Reese use a homemade time machine to travel into the future and fight Skynet head-on. It'll be tougher than they'd hoped, however, as it has evolved from a simple military defense system into "Genisys," a soon-to-be-launched operating system connected to every Internet-capable device in the world. But something is waiting for them in 2017. It's not just Pops, who has spent the intervening three decades building an arsenal, but a model of Terminator unlike anyone could have expected, one that knows exactly how to hit them where it hurts the most.

I honestly wasn't expecting a whole lot from Terminator Genisys when I entered that theater a few days ago. I was already filled with a sense of malaise following Rise of the Machines and Salvation, The clips I'd seen online didn't exactly make me very hopeful, and the fact that the people behind the advertising campaign went out of their way to spoil the movie's big plot twist actually kinda ruined part of the experience for me. But when you remove all that, Genisys is a movie that's terribly frustrating because you know it can be good, you know it can be something exciting and fun and special. But it's the same overblown, soulless Terminator movie that never captures the magic that James Cameron brought to the saga all those years ago.

The movie was directed by Alan Taylor, who had previously helmed the okay-at-best Avenger movie Thor: The Dark World two years ago. I never really had a problem with his direction on the Thor sequel, but it only felt kinda adequate upon reflection. I bring it up because I felt similarly in regards to his efforts here as well. Taylor's direction's not bad; there are actually some really cool action sequences and his use of 3D is pretty effective at times. But the action becomes monotonous after a while, and I had this strange, nagging feeling that I'd seen much of it done better in a lot of other, similar movies.

While Taylor's efforts are still serviceable at their worst, at least his direction is a lot better than the script. Penned by Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier, the idea to revitalize the Terminator franchise by revisiting the first movie from 1984 and giving a new spin on familiar events is a really interesting way to shake things up instead of going the traditional reboot route. The plot is unfortunately way more convoluted than it needed to be, however, and Reese's confusion between the original familiar timeline and the new, altered chain of events only reminds me of (and was done better in) the movie Frequency. The whole thing ends up being one big, disappointing mess that actually makes me wonder why they didn't just do a remake of the original movie from the get-go and been done with it.

And then there's the cast, almost none of whom do the movie any favors. First off, I have no idea, why they hired J.K. Simmons and Matt Smith. They have practically no screen time (especially Smith, who is probably in the movie a grand total of five minutes tops in what amounts to a glorified cameo), leading me to think that there's more planned for them if the movie gets turned into a trilogy like I've heard is planned. Why else would they bring in J. Jonah Jameson and Doctor Who?

Jason Clarke isn't bad as the latest actor to play John Connor, but I don't really know how to feel about Jai Courtney and Emilia Clarke. Courtney is forgettable, feeling more like a generic action hero you'd find in a direct-to-video movie from the '90s, coming nowhere close to the intense desperation we saw from Michael Biehn thirty years ago. I can say the same for Emilia Clarke, who never really comes close to filling Linda Hamilton's shoes. (Or even Lena Heady's, if you remember The Sarah Connor Chronicles.) Clarke is okay for what is asked of her, but much like Courtney, she doesn't have anywhere near the same emotional complexity of her predecessors. She comes off like a little girl pretending to be tough, instead of the paranoid, battle-worn warrior fans would recognize Sarah Connor as.

But the highlight of the movie, as with practically every Terminator movie, is the one and only Arnold Schwarzenegger. Nobody will ever accuse him of being a master thespian by any stretch of the imagination, but with the right role, he's great. He steps back into the Terminator like he'd never left it, with some awesome bits of action hero business and funny one-liners. This is the Arnold people have come to know and love, and I'm happy to see him again.

I think it goes without saying that Terminator Genisys is a generally inferior, assuredly mediocre movie. I can't call it a bad movie, as it's actually pretty fun at times. But with a convoluted narrative, disappointing acting, and a few other weird hiccups (is a parody of that old TV show Cops really necessary in the year 2015?), it just makes me wonder if anyone other than James Cameron will be able to make a truly great Terminator movie. I guess we'll have to wait and see...

Final Rating: **½

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

It's weird thinking that what started in 2009 with a movie based on the Marvel Comics superhero Iron Man has blossomed into a mega-franchise that has grossed over seven billion dollars worldwide and shows absolutely no signs of stopping. Some people thought that the franchise's final endgame would have been The Avengers in 2012, but here we are three years and five movies later talking about an Avengers sequel. The hype machine is in full gear and the anticipation is high, but Avengers: Age of Ultron isn't quite as good as I'd hoped it would have been. But you know what? It's still pretty fun.

The movie takes us immediately into the action, as the Avengers launch a raid on a secluded Eastern European laboratory where Hydra scientists have been using the mystical powers of Loki's scepter for human experimentation and creating super-soldiers for Hydra. Despite the interference of Pietro (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), twin siblings granted superpowers through Hydra's experiments, the Avengers' raid is successful. The bad guys are apprehended and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) claims Loki's scepter for himself so that he can study it further.

His research proves fruitful, as Stark discovers that the gem within the sceptre contains a hyper-advanced artificial intelligence that Stark and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) believe could be the key to perfecting "Ultron," Stark's unfinished global defense system. But upon its activation, Ultron (voiced by James Spader) proves to be not only sentient, but also very, very angry. It downloads itself into Stark's mechanical peacekeeping drones and attacks the Avengers before escaping with the sceptre.

Using it in tandem with the now-abandoned Hydra lab's leftover resources, Ultron builds himself a new, more powerful body and a personal army of robots. He recruits Pietro and Wanda to help him in his fight against the Avengers so that they might settle an old grudge with Stark, but what the Maximoffs don't know is that he has more than just killing a group of superheroes on his mind. In truth, his final goal is far more sinister: human extinction.

I entered Age of Ultron excited to see it, but afraid that it wouldn't live up to the hype or that it wouldn't be as good as the first Avengers movie. And while I did think Age of Ultron was a tremendously fun, exciting ride, I simply didn't think it was as strong as the first one. It's a solid movie, don't get me wrong, but I felt a little... I don't know, perhaps "underwhelmed" is the word I'm looking for.

Returning to the Avengers saga is writer/director Joss Whedon, who, from the looks of it, adopted an "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" approach to making the movie. I saw a double feature of both Avengers movies at my local theater, and in watching them back to back, I couldn't help but notice so many similarities that it's like they're practically the same movie. There are differences, sure, but Whedon hits so many of the same notes that he hit back in 2012 that it feels like he isn't interested in bringing a lot of new to the table. Perhaps it was a case of burnout or being exhausted creatively, or maybe Whedon was being hassled by Marvel and Disney executives to deliver a certain kind of movie. I wasn't on the set, so I don't know for certain.

And maybe it's me, but the film's pacing seems to stutter and stumble every so often almost as if it was being put together from scraps. And truth is, Whedon's original version of the movie is supposedly over three hours long, but word on the street is that he had to do a bunch of haphazard editing due to Marvel executives being unhappy with some of the material he was producing along with wanting to keep the movie under two and a half hours.

But what I thought was the movie's real problem was its script. The plot is typical paint-by-numbers superhero stuff, and the returning characters are written pretty much the same way they were before. That's not what bugged me, though. What got me was the addition of some unexpected subplots that don't really go anywhere or add anything to the movie. Case in point: the Hulk/Black Widow quasi-romance felt awkward and forcibly tacked on. I didn't think it was really all that necessary to the story (or even well put-together, really), and all it did was make me wonder what the heck ever happened to Betty Ross? Did Liv Tyler not want to return, and Marvel Studios didn't want to replace her? Or could they be distancing themselves from The Incredible Hulk due to its relative lack of success compared to the rest of the franchise?

There were some things I did enjoy, though, like the additions of Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and The Vision to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I though each of them added something very cool to the movie, like there's more to the world of the Avengers than just good guys fighting bad guys. And I know a few people who were curious to see how this version of Quicksilver would compare to the one that appeared in X-Men: Days of Future Past last year. They're so completely different, though, that it's almost not worth comparing them. X-Men's Quicksilver was barely in the movie but contributed the movie's best, most memorable scene, while Age of Ultron's is an important character and appears throughout, which means he might not make as huge an impact as the one from Days of Future Past but still plays a continually important part of the story. Apples and oranges, the two Quicksilvers are.

The movie might have its share of weaknesses, but it also has its strengths as well, the greatest of which is its cast. Many of the returning actors have played their characters so many times that they could probably do it in their sleep, and although they're not given any material to shake things up, the cast is still top notch. Mark Ruffalo and Jeremy Renner get to do a bit more dramatic heavy lifting, with their characters being the only ones to experience any kind of growth or evolution. Both Ruffalo and Renner are great, showing why both of them were great choices for their roles. And despite the contractual hangups regarding it, I still want to see Ruffalo get his own solo Incredible Hulk movie.

But of the actors returning to the franchise, I thought Paul Bettany really stood out in particular. Having only appeared previously as the voice of Iron Man's snarky digital assistant Jarvis, Bettany gets to stretch his legs as the android superhero The Vision. While Vision doesn't appear until the third act of the movie, Bettany still gets to make a heck of an impression. He's really likable in the role, and it left me wanting to see more of the character.

Among the franchise's newcomers, we get some really great performances from Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, and James Spader. Taylor-Johnson still plays his role in a way that's fun to watch, but he ends up being overshadowed by Olsen. Olsen is a very talented actress, and she brings a lot of depth and a sympathetic nature to Scarlet Witch. And like with Bettany as The Vision, I'm genuinely excited to see Olsen turn up in future movies in the franchise.

The real star of the show, though, is James Spader. One could make the argument that the Ultron we see here is kinda boring and underdeveloped (could his "kill all humans" supervillain plan be any more clichéd?), but Spader's charismatic voicework makes the character captivating to watch. He's essentially playing a dark, twisted version of Tony Stark, believing his intentions are noble but in truth causing more harm than good yet with a more intimidating, angry, evil tone to it all. Ultron takes Stark's egotism and "know it all" nature and cranks them up to a million, and Spader plays it up for all it's worth. He absolutely steals the entire movie, and despite Age of Ultron's flaws, Ultron himself makes the movie worth seeing.

I know that for a lot of this review, I've been kinda down on the movie. And personally, after how good Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy were, Age of Ultron is a bit of a letdown. But I really couldn't imagine a better way to open 2015's summer blockbuster season. Even if it's nothing we haven't seen a million times before, I can't ague that the movie isn't a totally fun way to spend two and a half hours. I enjoyed the hell out of it, but then I'm totally a sucker for this kind of stuff. And there's nothing wrong with that, is there?

Final Rating: ***

Unfriended (2014)

Bullying has always existed in some form or fashion. It sucks, but it has. And it seems like bullying has only gotten worse thanks to the rise of social media and the Internet. More and more you hear stories of kids taking their bullying too far and going online with it to prolong their tormenting, with those targeted by this harassment many times feeling that suicide is their only recourse.

Much like the rash of school shootings from the end of the 1990s, the recent trends in bullying have fodder for overwrought made-for-TV movies and episodes of police procedurals like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. And it's also spawned the new horror flick Unfriended. Originally having premiered under the title "Cybernatural" at last summer's Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal before it got a new name and was picked up for distribution by Universal Pictures, Unfriended introduces the idea of cyber-bullying into the tired, worn-out world of found footage movies in a way that brings us something unique. I'm not going to argue that the movie is great or even really that good, but hey, one can't fault somebody for making an effort.

It's been a year since teenager Laura Barns (Heather Sossaman) committed suicide after a humiliating video of her ended up on YouTube and led to her facing a ton of online bullying. On the anniversary of her death, it's readily apparent that her friends have put it all behind them, six of them getting together online via a Skype video chat hosted by Laura's former best friend Blaire Lily (Shelley Hennig). However, a mysterious, anonymous seventh party has entered their conversation and cannot be ejected from the group. That's when the threatening messages begin, both in the Skype chat and from Laura's Facebook page. As the messages from this unknown person grow more and more intense to the point of violence, their darkest secrets ― and their roles in the events leading to Laura's death ― begin coming to light.

I've been seeing Unfriended getting some really glowing reviews lately. Far be it for me to judge someone for enjoying a movie, but I'm not seeing what's so great about this one. I'm not saying it's a bad flick, because there are some really solid moments. But I walked out of the theater feeling underwhelmed. I mean, was this it? Was this the best it had to offer? I really don't like being able to sum up my opinion of a movie with the word "meh."

To the movie's credit, I did think the concept was pretty novel. The whole thing being done in a real-time view of the main character's computer screen is a really neat idea. It's like someone took Joe Swanberg's "The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger" segment from V/H/S to a crazy extreme. And director Levan Gabriadze constructs it well, for the most part. The problem is that I just didn't think the movie was that scary. There are a handful of scenes that I thought were genuinely suspenseful and creepy, I'm not going to lie. But there's just something here that I really felt that Unfriended was lacking.

Maybe it's because the movie isn't really aimed towards people like me. I'm in my early thirties I've seen dozens, if not hundreds of horror movies. Unfriended is the kind of movie made for the teenage crowd that isn't seeing every scary movie that comes along. If you bleep the profanities, you could probably air the movie on MTV between reruns of Catfish: The TV Series and Teen Mom. I also found it was hard to care about the characters, since they all seemed kinda flat (or just plain unlikable in one or two cases). I don't know if I should blame writer Nelson Greaves for it being this way in the script, or if it's because I can't really connect with modern teenagers. But it's hard for me to get into a horror movie like this when I don't give a crap about any of the people in it.

Even the movie's cast is more "just kinda there" than anything else. I did think Shelley Hennig did a great job and that Moses Jacob Storm had his moments, but the actors are largely paint-by-numbers at best. They did what they needed to do, but never do much better than that. The cast just does the bare minimum enough to get by without sucking outright. A great cast could have made this movie worthwhile in spite of its flaws, but nope, we'll have to do with what we have.

And that's all there is to say about Unfriended. All you've got is what it gives you, and that'll just have to suffice. I really wanted to like the movie. The concept shows a lot of promise and when it's good, I thought it could have been great. But the vast majority of the movie is, frankly, dull. I might give it a second chance when the DVD comes out in a few months. I might like it more at home on TV than on a big movie screen. (I'd actually get a kick out of watching it on a laptop, truthfully.) But as it stands, all I can say about Unfriended is, "meh, it's okay, I guess." It's not bad, it's not good, it just... is.

Final Rating: **

Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)

Every so often there comes along a phenomenon that just cannot be stopped and cannot be avoided no matter how much you may try. And a few years ago, you couldn't go anywhere without hearing about Fifty Shades of Grey. An erotic romance novel written by E.L. James, it became an unexpected viral sensation that seemingly everyone was talking about in some form or fashion. The book might have been heavily criticized for being poorly written and a grossly inaccurate portrayal of certain sexual fetish subcultures, but that actually only propelled it further. Such was its notoriety that Universal Studios quickly snatched up the movie rights and gave us the cinematic adaptation we're here to discuss today. And oh boy, is this thing an absolute mess.

As the movie begins, we're immediately introduced to Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson), a shy, mousy college student who'd be more comfortable fading into the background than anything else. With her roommate sick, Anastasia is drafted into taking her place interviewing wealthy businessman Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). She's woefully out of place in his office and intimidated by Christian's mere presence, stumbling her way through the awkward questions her roommate has prepared for her with all the gracefulness of a moose trying to ice skate.

But there is something about him that captivates Anastasia, and Christian is likewise drawn to her. What begins as a series of typical "meet cute" encounters leads to a relationship, one in which both are expecting something far different. Anastasia wants romance with the man of her dreams, but Christian is looking for someone to help him indulge in his BDSM fetish, to be the submissive to his dominant. She hesitates, knowing that this is way out of her comfort zone, but the thrill is too much for her to completely turn away from. Anastasia herself represents a bigger change to Christian's world than he expected as well, as she has unknowingly started chipping away at his rough, serious exterior.

I went into Fifty Shades of Grey having been forewarned that it wasn't all that good. I was still optimistic, though. What I'd heard about the book (which I have no intention of ever actually reading) made it sound so ridiculous that if the movie was really bad, it would at least be the fun kind of bad. I can handle bad movies as long as they're crazy enough to be entertaining. The movie is most certainly bad, no doubt about it. It's so stupid that there's no way, no way at all, that anyone involved with its production could have possibly expected anyone to take it seriously. But the catch is, though, the silly things that make Fifty Shades worth seeing when viewed as an unintentional comedy only make up a small fraction of the movie. In truth, the movie is as dull as dishwater. There are long, long stretches where the movie grows almost insufferably boring because there is nothing worthwhile going on. I spent a lot of it just rolling my eyes, wondering to myself if this was all there really was to it.

There are a lot of factors that contribute to why the movie is such a snoozefest, so let's start with the direction. At the helm is Sam Taylor-Johnson, who apparently took the title literally because the whole thing looks like it's done in dark, muted colors with varying shades of black and grey. It all looks very cold, lifeless. There's no spark to anything. Everything looks so drab and dreary, but considering that Christian's fetish workshop is decorated all in a bright crimson red, maybe that was the point? Upon sudden reflection, I think that might have been intentional, to create a dichotomy between Christian's sex room and the rest of the world. But then I'll admit that maybe I'm just reading too much into it too.

That could have actually been pretty neat from an artistic standpoint, but it's still ruined by the fact that the sex scenes themselves are so boring that they elicit not titillation but apathy. I get that a lot of the crazy stuff in the book had to either be severely watered down or eliminated outright in order to maintain an R rating, but in watching what the final movie has to offer, I realize that I've seen worse on Cinemax at 2:00 in the morning. The scenes are constructed in a way that they're nowhere near as steamy as they could or should have been. I'm not saying Taylor-Johnson had to film a shot-for-shot remake of 9½ Weeks, but come on, spice things up a little. In a movie whose source material is known for its overly kinky elements, the fact that a girl being tied up, blindfolded, and spanked with a flogger is actually boring blows my mind. I mean, what the hell?

But where things really start going downhill is with the script. Written by Kelly Marcel, the script is full of corny, clichéd dialogue and a brain-dead story that goes absolutely nowhere. The movie doesn't even end, instead just coasting to a stop. The climactic scene in Christian's playroom isn't much of a climax either, because it feels like just another boring scene in a movie full of boring scenes. Everything just feels so pointless that I can barely wrap my head around it.

And I think I figured out why I thought the characters were so stupid. While watching the movie, it's readily apparent that Fifty Shades of Grey got its start as E.L. James's Twilight fan fiction. Look it up, that's actually true. If Christian and Anastasia aren't Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, I'll eat my hat. He's a mysterious bad boy with a wealthy family and a dark secret, she's a klutzy, innocent wallflower that's too awkward for her own good. Anastasia has a coworker that's sweet on her, a sure stand-in for Jacob Black, her mom has divorced her dad and married a new guy in another state, and the whole thing is set in the Pacific Northwest. The only things it's missing are vampires and werewolves. I thought I was done with the Twilight movies after seeing Breaking Dawn: Part 2, but I guess I was wrong because I just sat through the BDSM version of it.

Last but not least is the acting. Oh dear, the acting. I actually kinda feel bad for the cast, having to play such dumb, badly written characters. But with the exception of the two lead actors, the entire cast is fairly inconsequential. They don't make any sort of mark on the movie, and are so unimportant that they simply don't matter in the slightest. The two leads, though, are totally worth talking about, but for far different reasons.

Our female lead, Dakota Johnson, is actually very good, better than this movie deserves. She's very sweet, likable, and charming. And she's actually pretty funny too, as she provides some genuinely humorous comedic moments amidst the dourness of the rest of the movie. But then there's Jamie Dornan. You'd think a movie like this would cast actors who have at least a little chemistry together, but Johnson and Dornan have less than none. There are multiple times where it's readily apparent that they don't even want to be in the same room together, let alone engaging any sort of staged eroticism. Their discomfort is absolutely palpable.

It doesn't help anything that Dornan is awful, awful, awful. Not only is his performance wooden and boasting a severe lack of charisma, but he plays the character in such a way that makes him woefully unappealing to boot. If Dornan's Christian were a real person, he'd probably be a serial killer. He's obsessive to the point of being creepy, secretly following (stalking, if we're being honest about it) Anastasia across the country to keep tabs on her. She's not a romantic partner, but sexual property. It's like all of the negative aspects of Edward Cullen in the first Twilight multiplied by a million. Combining that with Dornan's performance, and you have a recipe for failure.

There's really nothing to get worked up over with Fifty Shades of Grey. It's not as racy as some would have you believe, and by bad movie standards, it's just kinda there. To tell you the truth, I actually would have liked the movie more had it been worse. If they'd gone with full bore, over-the-top melodrama and aimed for an NC-17 rating with a fully faithful adaptation of the book, it would have been ridiculous and awesome and I'd have enjoyed the hell out of it due to how silly it would have been. But the movie we've got is the one we're stuck with. And well, that's pretty lousy.

Final Rating: *½

Project Almanac (2015)

I've always been a sucker for time travel movies. The idea of seeing the future, visiting the past, and altering the present have always fascinated me. And as I've espoused upon in the past, I often find myself drawn to found footage movies as well, even though a lot of them fail to rise above mediocrity and the style has started wearing out its welcome. The idea of both time travel and found footage being fused together is what drew me to the newly-released flick Project Almanac. The reviews have been relatively "meh" so far, but I figured I'd check it out anyway. And while I did think the movie was fun enough for what it was, that "meh" feeling was actually pretty accurate.

Genius high school student David Raskin (Jonny Weston) has just been accepted into MIT, but is devastated to learn that the scholarship he earned will only cover a small fraction of his tuition. While rummaging through the attic, he discovers some junk belonging to his father, an inventor who passed away ten years earlier. David hopes that his father's things can push him in the right direction in finding some other means of paying for his education. But what he finds, however, will change his life far more dramatically alter his life than studying at MIT ever could. Among his father's junk is a camcorder with a tape of David's seventh birthday party and the last time he and his sister Christina (Ginny Gardner) saw their father alive. When they watch the video, though, they're surprised to see a present-day David briefly walking through the background.

David shows the video to his friends Adam (Allen Evagngelista) and Quinn (Sam Lerner), who are equally as blown away. They venture into his father's workshop in the basement looking for clues, when they discover a secret hatch containing blueprints for a time machine. That, combined with David's appearance in the video, inspires them to start building it out of household objects and stolen school supplies. Their initial experiments don't go so well, but through trial and error begin to see that the machine has the potential to work.

Pretty classmate Jessie (Sofia Black-D'Elia) gets roped into the whole thing after stumbling upon one of their test runs with the time machine, helping continue their experiments that culminate with the whole group going back in time to the previous day. Bolstered by their success, they start having a little fun with it. They use it to pass tests they'd previously flunked, get revenge on bullies, give themselves winning lottery numbers. They even go back to Lollapalooza with souvenir VIP passes they bought on eBay three months after the fact. But when David misses a chance for romance with Jessie at Lollapalooza, his secret decision to rectify his mistake only ends up causing a ripple effect that does more harm to the present than good. His attempts to go back and fix those problems instigate even more catastrophic consequences, leaving David with an ever-growing mountain of problems that threaten to ruin everything he holds dear.

While I did enjoy Project Almanac for the most part thanks to its energetic pace, I felt it left something to be desired. I've heard it described as a hybrid of Chronicle and The Butterfly Effect, but the movie is nowhere near as strong as either of those. The problem is that it largely feels unfocused, as if it knows what it wants to do but is unsure of how to get there and gets distracted along the way. It just struggles along, hitting its head against a proverbial brick wall for an hour and a half before realizing it could have just walked around that wall.

Director Dean Israelite does a decent job of holding the movie together and keeps it moving fast and lively, but I thought the whole "found footage" style hindered him more than it helped. Not only does the shaky camerawork get old really fast, but there's no real reason why it has to be done that way anyway. Israelite could have made Project Almanac with traditional cinematography, and the movie probably could have been better off for it. The found footage aspect adds literally nothing to the movie outside of the occasional bits where the cast finds cameras that have sent back and forth through time.

But then again, the script isn't really worth much either. I noted earlier that the movie felt unfocused, and it's mostly due to the script. Writers Jason Harry Pagan and Andrew Deutschman don't really get to the serious drama, the consequences of the cast's actions, until there's roughly just twenty minutes left in the movie. Things don't start spiraling out of control until the movie's almost over, which doesn't really give it enough time to have any sort of serious impact with the audience.

That Butterfly Effect comparison I made earlier doesn't really fit if the consequences don't hit hard. There are little things ― the high school's basketball team goes from success to failure after the star player breaks his leg; the school bully is suddenly and without explanation everyone's best friend ― that we see are different. But then there's a plane crash and one of the main characters ends up in a coma after an accident. A plane crash and a comatose main character seem like they should be a big deal, right? But they never have the emotional impact that they should have. Pagan and Deutschman spend some time telling us what's happening rather than showing us, robbing the movie of any potential tension that could have been drawn from the ripples caused by their excursions into the past. Why should I care about what's happening if the movie itself doesn't care either?

To the movie's credit, I thought the cast was strong despite the characters being rather shallowly written. While Ginny Gardner is stuck in the role of "found footage camera operator" and is thus given next to nothing to do (rendering her a near-complete non-factor in the process), Allen Evangelista and Sam Lerner provide some amusing comic relief. I also thought Sofia Black-D'Elia was cute and charming, and had a fun chemistry with Jonny Weston. Weston, however, is the standout player. He gets to do the lion's share of the acting, and I thought his work was great. I'd have liked to have seen just what Weston could have done had the whole thing been fleshed out better. His excitement at the creation of the time machine and growing despair at his failures is very believable, and in a stronger movie, I think he could have gotten some attention.

That actually sums up Project Almanac fairly well. There are some parts I genuinely enjoyed, but they'd have been so much better had the rest of the movie been stronger. The movie has a fun energy and some decent acting, along with an interesting premise. It only does so much with what it has, though. Combine that with its weak script and unnecessary usage of found footage, and you have a movie that is probably only good as a mild diversion if anything. The DVD release in a few months could make for a decent watch on a boring afternoon, but it's probably not worth the $7.50 I paid to see it theatrically. Just wait for it to pop up on DVD or on-demand, and you might enjoy it.

And risks or no risks, I still want to own my own time machine. That'd be awesome.

Final Rating: **½