"Is this big enough to be cool?”
The Story:
For his 17th birthday party, Thomas’s (Thomas Mann) buddies have decided to give him the ultimate gift: a huge party that will enable all of them to be popular. They’ve even hired a nerdy kid from the A/V club to capture all of the footage, which ends up being a chronicle of one of the most outrageous house parties of all time when a horde of guests descend upon the neighborhood.
The Review:
The Review:
Project X has the DNA of many teen and party movies before it; its protagonists are of course hapless outcasts looking to finally ascend the high school social ladder, and they’re very much out of their league, so when everything escalates out of control, it should be a comedy of errors. However, that's assuming that Project X actually features comedy; there’s certainly plenty in the way of errors, but actual laughs are more scarce than dignity in this particularly obnoxious Generation Z update. While the debauchery here is the successor to that of Animal House, Bachelor Party, and House Party, it comes without any sense of impish awareness of its carnage. Project X knows and recycles the beats of these films, but it doesn’t know their tune; it has their genetic makeup, but it doesn’t have their soul. And like most soulless things, it’s vacuous, even in intent, as this is just an obvious attempt to marry the found footage trend with yet another movie genre.
In this case, that style only makes Project X feel like the biggest, glitziest Girls Gone Wild video of all time. Actually, it’s probably more apt to call it the glitziest Girls Gone Wild promo video ever created, as much of the film consists of montages featuring teens doing everything from grinding to dropping ecstasy tablets that explode from a lawn gnome when it’s shattered by a baseball bat. Between these music videos, the film attempts to find a through-line with characters that range from boring to insufferable. Thomas, the birthday boy, is the former--the typical, finicky nerd who is worried about his parents discovering his exploits, while his buddy Costa (Oliver Cooper) is the one responsible for this insane shindig. A Queens native with an incongruently huge ego considering his lack of popularity, he grates down to the bone by about the 30 minute mark. Rounding out the trio is J.B. (Jonathan Daniel Brown), who is there as the fat guy to be mercilessly taunted by Costa; we’ve seen this sort of dynamic before, but there’s something wholly unbelievable about this trio.
I have no idea why these three guys would be friends if not for their shared status as sad-sack losers. Even Thomas’s own dad calls him a loser, just in case you were wondering how mean-spirited Project X can be. And despite such deck-stacking, we’re never once compelled to actually feel much sympathy for any of these guys; Thomas of course is friends with a cute, sweet girl named Kirby (Kirby Bliss Blanton) who also happens to be the closest thing to an actual human being in Project X. As such, when Thomas is too busy trying to score with the school’s slut, you actually feel pretty bad for Kirby; meanwhile, you’d wish Thomas and everyone else would die in a fire.
I have no idea why these three guys would be friends if not for their shared status as sad-sack losers. Even Thomas’s own dad calls him a loser, just in case you were wondering how mean-spirited Project X can be. And despite such deck-stacking, we’re never once compelled to actually feel much sympathy for any of these guys; Thomas of course is friends with a cute, sweet girl named Kirby (Kirby Bliss Blanton) who also happens to be the closest thing to an actual human being in Project X. As such, when Thomas is too busy trying to score with the school’s slut, you actually feel pretty bad for Kirby; meanwhile, you’d wish Thomas and everyone else would die in a fire.
Remarkably, the film looks like it may oblige when a guy wielding a flamethrower crashes the party; I’d hoped that maybe the characters had stumbled into a lost sequel to The Exterminator and that Project X would stay true to the found footage genre by having everyone die in glorious, roasted fashion. But this doesn’t happen; in fact, Project X forces itself to keep following those usual beats without earning them at all. When it suddenly attempts to grow a heart, it’s more like it’s had an artificial one clunkily stuffed into its sweaty, alcohol-poisoned body.
Everything about the last ten minutes rings false, and it’s not even done with the subversive transgressiveness of something like Risky Business. Instead, it’s just another adolescent fantasy that comes without much wit or humor along the way, opting instead for off-putting homophobia and a loathsome portrait of youth that fails to be endearing. The oddly saccharin aftertaste that accompanies its brief hangover feels so forced that it borders on parody, as if Project X was pushing itself to apocalyptic limits all this time just to recoil into an ending that's so predictable it almost demands us to consider how these type of movies usually end in triumph. Its stripped down, faux-documentary style might even make us ponder how that even extends out into actual culture--Project X often presents an unflattering world, and its expectation that we identify with its characters without putting forth much effort to make us do so almost feels absurd. If it had an ironic bone in its body, Project X would almost work as a bleak satire of this culture.
Everything about the last ten minutes rings false, and it’s not even done with the subversive transgressiveness of something like Risky Business. Instead, it’s just another adolescent fantasy that comes without much wit or humor along the way, opting instead for off-putting homophobia and a loathsome portrait of youth that fails to be endearing. The oddly saccharin aftertaste that accompanies its brief hangover feels so forced that it borders on parody, as if Project X was pushing itself to apocalyptic limits all this time just to recoil into an ending that's so predictable it almost demands us to consider how these type of movies usually end in triumph. Its stripped down, faux-documentary style might even make us ponder how that even extends out into actual culture--Project X often presents an unflattering world, and its expectation that we identify with its characters without putting forth much effort to make us do so almost feels absurd. If it had an ironic bone in its body, Project X would almost work as a bleak satire of this culture.
It doesn't, though; Project X ultimately is a party movie that celebrates indulgence, which would also be okay if it were entertaining to watch these guys indulge. It occasionally stumbles into some fleeting moments that work as comedy, such as when one of the middle-aged neighbors (with horrible porn ’stache in tow) wanders into the proceedings. Costa also employs a couple of 12 year old kids as the security detail who manage to be funny, particularly the slick-haired Everett, a self-professed ninja. Miles Teller also shows up and plays a dramatized version of himself, though it’s a little creepy to hear him drooling over the prospect of picking up high school girls. However, it’s not so much that kind of debauchery that makes Project X such a chore; in fact, the sheer, ludicrous scale of the destruction here is impressive. Without an empathetic center, though, it’s just a loud, empty parade of dick-punches and explosions; if Michael Bay ever filmed a frat party, this would probably be the result.
Project X reveals the fine line that films like this walk; after all, its predecessors were similarly lewd and crass--the guys in Animal House and Bachelor Party even managed to kill live animals during their rampages; however, there’s no Blutos or Peckerheads to be found among this bunch. Well, there’s actually plenty of peckerheads, which is the problem; there’s something so acidic about Project X that makes it difficult to enjoy. The sort of party presented here seems like it could be fun to attend, but not with these characters as hosts. In the end, it feels like you’ve just watched Crazy Youtube Video: The Movie. (Brett G.)
Project X reveals the fine line that films like this walk; after all, its predecessors were similarly lewd and crass--the guys in Animal House and Bachelor Party even managed to kill live animals during their rampages; however, there’s no Blutos or Peckerheads to be found among this bunch. Well, there’s actually plenty of peckerheads, which is the problem; there’s something so acidic about Project X that makes it difficult to enjoy. The sort of party presented here seems like it could be fun to attend, but not with these characters as hosts. In the end, it feels like you’ve just watched Crazy Youtube Video: The Movie. (Brett G.)
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