The tale of three geeky High School friends who endeavour to throw the greatest birthday party in history to both gain friends and get laid, the film certainly delivers on its trailer's promise of drink and drug-fuelled debauchery, but while the raunch quotient is high, the film unfortunately lacks anything in the way of charm.
Thomas Mann plays Thomas - the birthday boy in question - a sweet, unassuming soul whose lack of popularity is such that even his parents consider him a loser. His foul-mouthed friend Costa (Oliver Cooper) identifies an opportunity when Thomas's parents go away for the weekend, and so together with third friend JB (Jonathan Daniel Brown), they set about organising the kind of shindig that would make the last days of Rome look like a kindergarten party.
So what starts out as a simple gathering for a few friends soon escalates into something far more serious. Thanks to a canny physical and viral campaign, the majority of the teenagers in Pasadena find their way to the house, while clothes are removed, a dog is tormented, ecstasy is consumed, a car is destroyed, and that's before the dude with the flame-thrower shows up.
Yet while (if you lack a moral compass) that sounds like fun, the reality is quite different; the story predictable, the laughs too few and far between; the characters downright irritating.
Much of the reason for that lies in the writing and playing of the three central teens. Writers Matt Drake and Michael Bacall obviously saw Superbad and decided to slavishly follow its template. But while the characters in that film were genuinely likeable kids, played by three stars in the making, the Project X lads are relentlessly obnoxious, making it harder and harder to root for them as the party progresses.
Thomas is the nicest of the bunch, but too bland to be of interest, while Costa and J.B. are painfully unpleasant - brash, misogynistic, Jonah Hill-wannabes whom you find yourself willing ill upon as they find ever new ways to annoy and infuriate.
It's not a total disaster in terms of characterisation, though, with Kirby Bliss Blanton sweetly likeable as the object of Thomas's affections, and youngsters Nick Nervies and Brad Hender stealing every scene in which they appear as a pair of pint-sized security guards. But similarly raunchy comedies like The Hangover and Bridesmaids succeeded as much for the fact that you wanted to spend time with the characters as they did for the actual gags, and Project X largely fails on this front.
First-time director Nima Nourizadeh - putting his background in music videos and commercials to good use - shoots the party scenes with energy and vitality, his camerawork rocketing you slap-bang into the middle of the action. But he needs to quit pressing the montage button, as the many slow-motion, rap-scored scenes of teens doing wrong soon become wearing.
The found footage device just about sustains itself, the conceit here that a strange goth would be happy to shoot proceedings simply because, well, he's strange. However, as with all films of the genre, one must ask the question 'does it need to be found footage,' with the answer a resounding 'no' in the case of Project X.
So if you are in the mood to watch a sporadically funny but ethically questionable film in which cheap knock-offs of the Superbad kids do what the Polaroids at the end of The Hangover movies hinted at, Project X is the film for you.
But if you find obnoxious teens grating, or you like your films to have some kind of moral centre, or you think that a dwarf being stuffed into an oven is a poor excuse for comedy, we'd recommend giving it a miss.
Chris is the Entertainment Editor of IGN.com in the UK and managed to smash his own face up on his 18th birthday. You can keep track of his debauched thoughts on MyIGN and his mirth-free tweets can be found here.
2 out of 5 Stars, 4/10 Score
