Went to see the teen time travel flick Project Almanac – a movie that’s been delayed for over a year and went through at least two name changes in the process. Very bad signs for not a bad movie.

A trio of nerdy boys and a girl – who is there to record everything (it’s a found footage flick) – find a time machine in their basement (as you are wont to do). Soon they are using the machine to fix bad test scores, get revenge on bullies, and attend all the best sets at Lollapalooza (apparently with special guest stars Imagine Dragons… the movie was filmed over a year ago).

SNL did a funny bit years ago with Christopher Walken where he played the Trivial Psychic who predicts pointless, incidental things for people. This movie feels like Trivial Time Travelers through a great big swath of it. I suppose this is all incidental stuff that teens might do with time travel… and it’s reasonably fun (though not always logically consistent with their time travel rules). Eventually the movie kicks in and shows the repercussions of time travel and it gets curiously muddled at the same time the main character gets his time travel muddled. It works and introduces a reasonable amount of tension. Not a lot but some.

Side note: the movie knows its time travel predecessors and name drops Looper, Bill & Ted, and a few other flicks… and visually references Back to the Future in a few spots.

Another note – three nerdy boys and one of their sisters and then they bring in another girl… the girls know nothing about all this time travel or tech stuff and that just got old. Hey screenwriters.. how about one of the girls be as smart as the boys? No? Sigh.

Overall, not a bad movie and certainly a lot better than I figured it’d be after the long delay (and trailers I saw over a year ago where it had a different name). It’s completely incidental but not a bad watch.

Score: 76