“Project Almanac” directed by Dean Israelite, is a movie for people who are patient and don’t mind the movement of a video camera. Some parts of the film that were slow, while other parts that were hard to understand. The genre of this film was science fiction, and though the plot wasn’t quite original, it was enjoyable.

Certain aspects of the movie are hard to believe as well, like kids building a time machine on their own. I thought that the director, Israelite, and the writers; Andrew Deutschman and Jason Pagan, sold the idea of time travel being a real possibility. The film was shot as video footage from an old video camera found in the teenager’s attic, adding another layer of believability. Because of the filming style and script, I believed that such a thing was possible.

The storyline follows a group of teenagers who find blueprints for, and make, a time machine. The creation of the machine obviously used terms that were foreign to anyone who isn’t a genius. There were times when the characters try to explain what they are doing, but ultimately it’s lost on the people who simply aren’t educated in engineering. One of the teenagers, David, had just been accepted to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but couldn’t afford it. He and the group used their time traveling machine to help better their lives, which I thought was a nice twist to the typical time travel movies. The group had been poor, bullied, and were struggling in school, so they used the machine to help each other better their lives which was selfish, but believable of teenagers.

The acting in the movie was part of why the story was so intriguing. David, played by Jonny Weston, was the main brainiac whose father, before his untimely death, had been working on the time machine, Weston was able to make viewers both feel for him and wish him success. The other actor who I felt did well connecting with viewers was Sofia Black-D’Elia who played Jesse Pierce. Her love interest was David, which I felt Weston and Black-D-Elia pulled off wonderfully. The chemistry between the two was undeniable which viewers were able to connect to.

The only predictable part of the movie was the fact that something went wrong during one of the time travels, which altered the fate of the world. What I thought was honorable in the plot was that David took it upon himself to go back to try to fix the mistakes he made.

Overall the film was enjoyable, though a little bit predictable. Fortunately, it’s a story that leaves you feeling a sense of resolution. I thought the filmmakers did a good job of selling the unbelievable and following the minds of teenagers to the brink of adulthood. I would give this film a B. I recommend the movie to anyone who doesn’t get nauseous by the found footage kind of filming, and doesn’t mind a slower build up of explanations to make way for the action.