Project X (2012)
Rated R
Starring: Thomas Mann, Oliver Cooper, Jonathan Daniel Brown,
Dax Flame, Kirby Bliss Blanton
Directed by: Nima Nourizadeh
Tagline: The party you've only dreamed about.
Running time: 88 Minutes
Quick summary (from IMDB): 3 high school seniors throw a
birthday party to make a name for themselves. As the night progresses, things
spiral out of control as word of the party spreads.
I really didn’t want to enjoy Project X because of what (I
thought) it was: a lazy attempt at filmmaking. I’m still kind of on the fence
about “found footage” movies, as I hated the two most popular movies in this
style, The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity. The difference between
those two movies and Project X was that those two were horror, and tried to use
the shaky camera and bad acting to make the movies seem real and to make it
scarier. It doesn’t really work (for me) as I end up bored and making fun of
the bad acting or the stupid tricks. I figured Project X would be kind of the
same, and the lack of traditional movie story-telling and structure would not
work and I’d just be bored for 90 minutes. Turns out it was actually kind of funny.
These types of movies only work if the cast is made up of
complete unknowns. With the exception of that one dude with the mustache (Pete Gardner) and
Jimmy Kimmel, I’d never seen any of the main characters anywhere else. That
certainly helps make it feel more realistic. The 3 main dudes (Thomas Mann, Oilver Cooper and Jonathan Daniel Brown) all did a good job, especially if this was their first time actually
acting, though I doubt it’s very hard to act like a teenager going wild at a
crazy high school party. It probably is as simple as: Drink fake alcohol,
pretend to be drunk, jump in a pool, dance around, pass out, wake up, and look
hung over. There’s not a whole lot of depth or emotion required to pull that
off. Still they were able to do a convincing job of it.
There’s not a whole lot to the movie other than the
partying, and much of the funnier scenes were in the trailer, but overall it
was a pretty funny movie. It’s not even close to the level of Animal House or
Old School in terms of ridiculously awesome parties in movies, but it’s decent,
and a lot of crazy stuff happens, and the party looks outrageous. Definitely
not a party I’d want to go to.
The only thing I didn’t get with Project X is how in the
world it cost $12 million to make. The camera(s) probably didn’t cost more than
a couple thousand dollars, they cast unknowns and had tons of extras, but other
than that, couldn’t have had too many other expenses. Sure, they destroyed a
Mercedes and an entire fake neighborhood full of houses, and had some effects
and stunts, but it couldn’t have cost that much. I feel like I could have made
this movie for way less than $12 mil. Someone spot me $1 mil and I’ll make a
pretty sweet college/high school party movie.
I’m kind of afraid that after a movie like this, especially
since it grossed nearly $100 million, there will be a ton more just like it
with shaky cams, shoddy acting and shenanigans and hi-jinks in lieu of a plot.
In Project X, the acting was good enough and the shenanigans funny enough to
make it work.
3 out of 5 stars
Trailer:
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