Walking away from this, the only thing I could think about is why there are not a lot of evil flame-thrower wielding madmen in films. The spectacle of someone using the army-grade incendiary device, or a dangerous home-made edition such as in BELLFLOWER, is genuinely breathtaking to the movie camera. Of course, the majority of films with them featured only care about the weaknesses of the weapon, namely its vulnerable fuel tanks, in order to have a fleeing man on fire and/or a violent explosion to cap a scene. Still, I'll continue to pine for it, especially when it is used viciously against ungrateful main characters and their pathetic scrap of story.
PROJECT X is and always was going to be nothing more than an endless parade of debauchery. It is all about finger pointing at crazy shenanigans; there are multiple shots of drinking, female butts, bare breasts, sex, drug taking, and more drinking. That's the obvious main draw for the teenage crowd, but the problem with watching endless debauchery throughout a movie is that it gets both extremely aggravating and frankly very boring. Hell, this thing happens to controversial yet critically acclaimed works like IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES and the absolutely nihilistic SALO. But at least those two films have a message to get across to the viewer, not to mention go further to the extremes of moral taste. PROJECT X is just paper-thin, regulating itself to be strictly just for people who thought Woodstock 99 got a bad rap.
It was the first act of the film that greatly agitated me the most. Here, we are forced to follow the main trio of Thomas, Costa, and J.B. as they are being filmed by a hired-on goth kid named Dax. Costa, a particular character I'll get into later, wants to throw a major 17th birthday party for Thomas at his house after his parents leave for their coincidental anniversary. Do they all want to do this to help out their social status in high school? Not exactly, it is mainly just all about their loins. The three talk so much about objectifying women and genitalia, that they move from being simply horny young men to mentally damaged sexual predators. Even Michael Fassbender would say tone it down. The film even has proof of this in the very first scene: Costa walks around Thomas' house singing an explicit call-and-response rap song. We, as the viewer who is currently watching a post-production finished product from all of the found footage, hear the song yet Costa has nothing on him to be able to hear the calls. That means that in the so-called "original" footage, Costa is quietly shifting around before shouting out a brief derogatory exclamation.
Once the party gets under way, the film becomes lame chaos and the putrid script is more and more noticed for its vast shortcomings. The story and half of the script was written by Michael Bacall, a man who has helped write other movies involving high-schoolers or people trapped in the high-school mindset. Here, he and co-writer Matt Drake simply just dug out a washed-up 80's screenplay, complete with plenty of usages of the other "f" word in this day and age. All the same old beats are there: the hot girl, the other hot girl who inexplicably is just a friend, the room and car to be destroyed later, the college kid, and the father who thinks his son is totally uncool. I felt bad for Kirby Bliss Banton as Thomas' tomboy friend Kirby and Miles Teller as the college baseball jock Miles (notice a trend?). These two have the energy for better work, especially Teller since his breakthrough in last year's FOOTLOOSE, yet they are stuck with little material compared to the devil times three main characters.
Now, about that Costa character. This Jonah Hill wannabe, both the character and the never-likable Oliver Cooper playing him, is a menace not just to society, but also for the mental well-being of everyone. Actually, bringing up Hill is an insult to mention; This new Andrew Dice Clay is an annoying author insert character, who revels in the excesses when he is not whining to move the plot in his direction. Seriously, Costa controls the same way the story goes as Bacall and Drake. Why does he just have to steal a gnome from a deranged army vet? So the guy can come in later to terrorize them. Why should Thomas need to almost sleep with the hot girl Alexis, despite just hooking up with Kirby? Because he tells Thomas that Kirby has small breasts, is more of a dude than lady, and this night is to bed the unattainables in life. Never in a while have I loathed a character this much.
As for the technical end of things, there's not much to say compared to the other crap. The found footage film was supposed to look like it was shot at a real party, and it does. It seems that director Nima Nourizadeh has a background in music videos. Well, that was a safe and easy pick for the producers. However, there is a very good reason why music videos do not go for long. Also, though the film explains why there are footage from two other cameras, those belonging to the very young security team, it never acknowledges how the main cameraman keeps teleporting around everywhere when an action arises, or has the hard drive space to film all of this.
I'm not just another old fart that curses the teenage minds today and their idea of "fun", even though I do have such feelings, I only care if everything in PROJECT X comes into some type of context at a point. But what a happy non-surprise, this film doesn't and never wanted to go in that direction, cause that would ruin the party. Why explain that massive destruction and ruined futures are in order when high school and one fun night is all that matters in life? Simply put, this is a film for the IDIOCRACY generation; how else explains the inclusion of a little person who's there to punch men in the balls?
FINAL REVIEW: 1 / 5
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