For you internet types, here's your TL;DR*: ProjectX sucks seventeen donkey balls.
On to the review!
Project X is a found footage film about three unpopular teenager's attempts to be cool by throwing a huge party. While there's nothing inherently wrong with such a simple movie, the director chooses to go about it in absolutely the worst way possible. The found footage method is played out and does nobody any favors. The plot is terrible, the 'acting' sucks and the people are all so damn dislikeable that there's no reason to root for anyone.
The three main characters are Thomas (Thomas Mann), Costa (Oliver Cooper) and JB (Jonathan Daniel Brown). They are, in order, the wussy pushover, the loudmouthed jerk, and the idiot. In fact, each character plays to their archetype so much that you want to set fire to everything around you. Thomas is the whiny, dorky kid who, in the words of his own father, is kind of a loser. He's got no backbone and no drive, yet he's the one we're supposed to find the most loveable?
Costa is what I like to call the Stiffler character. After the popularity of American Pie, all teen movies are legally required to have a character who skirts the line between friend and foe, someone who means well at times but is also willing to play mean jokes on his friends. Unfortunately, Costa is what Stiffler would be like if he had no morals, no class, and no filters. He's arrogant, selfish, and hateful, lacking a single redeeming quality.
Finally, there's JB. Since we have the dork and the party animal, we need the idiot, right? Again, Project X takes it too far and decides against the loveable idiot. Instead, we get a kid who should be in a school for children with special needs. It's like the director (Nima Nourizadeh, if you need to direct your anger at someone) heard the line in Tropic Thunder about never going full retard, said "screw that" and made every single character in this movie a one dimensional archetype.
Oh yeah, and the 'documentarian' of this little shitfest is Dax (Dax Flame), dressed as what I can only figure the director called 'Columbine sheik.' They go out of their way to make him the creepy kid in the trench coat for the sake of two shitty jokes.
Finally, there's the love interest. Kirby (Kirby Bliss Blanton) is the unlucky lady who gets to have feelings for Thomas. She's also the only female in this entire movie exists as more than tits and ass, and she's stuck pining after a spineless whiner.
Now for the plot. Thomas's parents go out for the weekend, Costa organizes a party via social media, things get way out of hand when hundreds of people show up and half the neighborhood ends up getting destroyed. The worst part of this film is that the ending is actually entertaining in a 'let's see how far we can take this' sort of way. It actually pissed me off when I realized that there were about ten minutes in Project X that I actually liked. It's as if I was covered in angry bees and for a brief second liked it. Now I've got this sense of shame, loathing and confusion that I just can't shake.
By all means, go see Project X of you want to see breasts and don't have internet access (how the hell are you reading this?). 15 year olds might like it too because there's less of a chance that they have seen enough good cinema to know that this movie sucks. If you like swearing, lowest-common-denominator comedy, misogyny, and the pointless appearance of Martin Klebba as the violent Angry Little Person (actual billing), then check it out. The only thing I'll give Project X credit for is its willingness to not let anything like pesky morals get in the way of a story.
If you want your teenage coming-of-age movie to actually be funny or fun to watch, then might I suggest you go back in time and watch anything that has come out in the last decade? Waiting, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, and Van Wilder all have teens trying to figure out what to do with their lives via parties and random bullshit. Plus none of them suck nearly as much as Project X.
*Too Long; Didn't Read
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