The premise of The Adam Project is strong enough that it’s an easy sell, but it’s the execution that helps the film land. There are so many ways that the film’s premise could be mishandled – from the casting to the tone – but director Shawn Levy and star/producer Ryan Reynolds strike that perfect balance that ensures The Adam Project is a fun sci-fi action romp that packs a surprising amount of heart.
Ryan Reynolds plays Adam, a future pilot who travels back in time and ends up meeting and working with his teenage self. Young Adam (Walker Scobell) is still reeling from the death of his father a little over a year ago and acts out by antagonizing the bullies at school. His mom, Ellie (Jennifer Garner), is doing her best to navigate single parenting, but Adam isn’t helping and purposefully acts out. It's evident that Ellie and Young Adam care for each other, but Adam's struggles with coping turn him into a bit of a jerk.
Right at the top of the film a title card tells viewers, “Time travel exists.” The Adam Project doesn’t spend a lot of time getting bogged down in the why of it all, and by and large audiences should accept the general premise. Even the core narrative, which sees Adam trying to stop something from occurring in the past and influencing the future, is relatively simple as far as sci-fi concepts go. Really, the main appeal of The Adam Project is the fun adventure, slick action, and the relationships between the characters.
Reynolds and Scobell anchor The Adam Project in a way that makes it endlessly watchable. They have incredible chemistry together and it’s easy to buy into the conceit that this is young Ryan Reynolds interacting with his older self. More importantly, The Adam Project isn’t afraid to tackle some of the more emotional aspects of time travel, like the guilt and remorse Older Adam feels for the way he acted as a teen and the lessons he tries to impart on his younger self. The humor and the action are major selling points, but the performances prop everything up. Parents will find the material especially resonant and a few scenes are like an emotional gut punch.
Though the tone is what sets the film apart from its ilk, The Adam Project is still a breezy sci-fi action flick that is well-paced and exciting. There is some very cool future tech on display in the film and Reynolds and Zoe Saldana (who plays a character with ties to Adam's future) get to flex their action chops in some exciting set pieces. Most of the sequences are fairly simple in their execution but clever uses of CGI to give some aspects an otherworldliness help the action from feeling too familiar.
In an effort to be relatively light, The Adam Project does underserve some of its characters, most notably Catherine Keener's Maya Soren. She's a villain because the film needs a villain but her motivations are passable at best and her characterization lacks any nuance. Like everyone else, Keener does well with the role given but it would have been nice to have a more defined villain. And yet, that hiccup doesn't weight the movie down too much, because the majority of it is focused on the relationships between the main characters and the two Adams.
Comparisons are already being made between The Adam Project and some of Spielberg’s early work, and for good reason. Casting is what makes this film more than just a run of the mill action film, but that mixture of action and comedy that Reynolds does so well will keep audiences invested the whole way through. Scobell is a genuine talent and helps make The Adam Project a more family-friendly experience that will appeal to a broader audience.
Outside of a very distracting use of CGI de-aging tech, The Adam Project is well executed in its vision and doesn’t stray too far from its predicted trajectory. A film like this could have very easily turned out much different as a Netflix release, but putting the right people in front of and behind the camera makes The Adam Project a genuine delight.
The Adam Project is available to stream on Netflix.
The Adam Project
The Adam Project is a sci-fi action/comedy starring Ryan Reynolds as a time-traveling pilot who accidentally arrives in the past and must work with his 12-year-old self to save the future. Adam Reed (Reynolds) heads back from his time in 2050 to save his wife in 2018. When things go awry, he crashes his time-traveling aircraft in 2022, where his 12-year-old self finds him. Chased into their timeline, they're attacked by the leader of the dystopian future and must escape their grasp and fight to change and save their future.