Project Almanac (2014)

All of the young actors are committed, and director Dean Israelite has a good handle on the material, offering his own contributions to the time travel genre (like how violent the act itself is) while continually tipping his hat to what came before it.

Clever, funny but emotionally stunted. Like most teenagers.

Even with all the teen angst and temporal alterations, the film stays fleet, funny and fast, especially as our leads figure out, through trial and error, how they can take advantage of their new abilities in ways large and small.

Despite the uncomfortable sexism and altogether predictable nature of the film, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t modestly entertaining.

Every generation gets the time travel it deserves. Project Almanac isn’t “Time After Time” (1979) or “Back to the Future” (1985) or “12 Monkeys” (1996), but the new release does turn out to be a surprisingly jaunty trip for jaded Gen-Y kids.