Project X (2012) - Nima Nourizadeh

Three nerdy high school seniors throw a massive birthday party in an attempt to make a name for themselves and become popular.   They succeed at their mission, but as the night progresses the party spirals way out of control.  Project X is the latest film of the found footage genre, tackling the teenage sex-comedy to no avail.   The irony of Project X is how it uses the found footage angle in an attempt to feel real and genuine but it ultimately comes off as very fake and staged.   The Costa character is essentially a poor rip off of the Jonah Hill character from Superbad with the performance coming off as some type of half-assed wannabe performance.  The main problem with Project X is it just isn't that fun or interesting, consisting of laugh out loud moments which are few and far between.  Thomas, our central character, has a story arch where he must choose between the "hot popular girl" and the "friend", who happens to be pretty hot in her own right.  The problem is nothing is developed with this whole situation, opting instead to simply throw the viewer into a world where this super popular girl just happens to want to have sex with Thomas.  The whole thing just feels so unnecessary, particularly for a film that seems to be wanting to break typical genre conventions.  Ultimately the message of the film is just dumb, essentially supporting this bullshit idea that popularity is an important concept.  The fact that Thomas is noticed now makes everything else not a big deal.  Don't get me wrong if the film was more fun, then this concept would have totally been warranted.  Essentially, the fact that the film never fully embraces it's premise, instead opting for a generic high school storyline which is ultimately boring.

4/10

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