Project X

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ Another loser is egged on by his asshole friend to throw the epic party of all time so that they can make a name for themselves. Only this time, as word of the party spreads, the event devolves into total chaos resulting in an incendiary end to his parents home and half a block in North Pasadena,California. The house party destruction here is on a scale never committed before to film and perhaps for this reason, it is a noteworthy new benchmark for the genre. Less a found footage effort and more a slickly produced and expensive high definition video film, Project X, for all its ambitiousness, may survive the obscurity that plagues second tier studio efforts and find its place among the classics of what is a purely juvenile film genre. The kids in this film alternate between obnoxious and sympathetic. The leads,Thomas Mann, Oliver Cooper, and Jonathan Daniel Brown are almost identical to the boys in Greg Mottola's Superbad, a cerebral effort by comparison, but the runaway train that the party becomes is ultimately Superbad on steroids. In the end, the viewer may not feel anything for these kids, even Mann's Thomas who should evoke some sympathy. After all, who would want to be in his situation, one that was not entirely of his making?