Some kids find a way to travel through time, they use it to get away with various crimes and juvenile shenanigans, it comes back to bite them in the ass. It’s a sound premise, and the trailer does a good job of selling it. There are some obvious problems, however.
First of all, the film comes to us from Platinum Dunes, whose filmography could charitably be described as “spotty.” Second, the film bears a highly suspicious resemblance to Chronicle, which basically did the same “irresponsible teenagers with superpowers” schtick last year.
Thirdly (and again, like Chronicle), this is a found-footage movie even though it would probably be better off without the gimmick. I’ll set aside my own personal exhaustion with found-footage movies, since they’ll continue to get made as long as Paranormal Activity is around, whether we like it or not. Speaking of which, I notice that this film was written by Jason Pagan and Andrew Stark, whose IMDB pages are otherwise completely blank except for the upcoming Paranormal Activity 5. How convenient.
Anyway, I wonder if this will finally be the film that makes everyone ask “Why is he holding a camera right now?” Hell, right there in the trailer, we see a guy jump back to his seventh birthday — presumably on a stealth mission, since no one ever saw he was there — yet he’s bringing a camera to get every moment on film. Why?!
Welcome to Yesterday is set to premiere on February 28th of 2014. We’ll see how it does against a Liam Neeson action film, a McG/Luc Besson action thriller, and a Paul W.S. Anderson disaster film.