Have you ever wanted to travel through time, and team up with yourself as a kid to save the world? The Adam Project does exactly that as Ryan Reynolds and the team that brought us Free Guy brings the SciFi Action Comedy to Netflix.
What To Watch In March – The Adam Project
The Plot – The Adam Project
Adam Reed, played by Ryan Reynolds, flies fighter jets that can travel through time.
Twenty Eight years in the future, Adam is on the run, or should I say flying away in his stolen fighter jet. Taking heavy fire from the very people he works with, Adam hits buttons and switches in his futuristic cockpit.
Refusing to surrender his plan or his ship, Adam hits the big button, and vanishes into the past. But, where in the past his pursuers know not.
A 12 year old Adam gets hit — hard — by a bully, yet ADAM receives the suspension from school. Young Adam, played by Walker Scobell, waits in the Principal’s Office as his mother Ellie, played by Jennifer Garner argues on his behalf.
Adam hasn’t been the same since his Dad, Louis, played by Mark Ruffalo passed away. And now, Ellie seems to be barely holding it together dealing with her troubled almost teen.
After Ellie leaves to go on a date, Adam hears a ruckus outside his home in 2022. Burning embers float down from the sky, as he checks out the scene. Adam finds a man, bleeding, in his Dad’s old workshop. Quickly he discovers the bleeding man is himself, from the future.
The Good – The Adam Project
Walker Scobell
For those of us who love Ryan Reynolds, his trademark smartass demeanor and surprisingly honest emotional transparency, bring a distinct and fun feel to all of his movies, like Free Guy. Capturing that same performance in an actual 12 year old is the job of Walker Scobell.
For anyone who THINKS Ryan Reynolds acts like a twelve year old most of the time anyway, Walker Scobell faces an uphill climb playing the ACTUAL twelve year old. But, Walker’s ‘Young Adam’ is quite different from the grown up Adam.
Undersized, Asthmatic, and dealing with the recent loss of his Father, Young Adam seems all pain and brain, and no brawn. The trademark Ryan Reynolds wit and quips are there, but a raw emotionality remains.
When the grown up Adam shows up, we see both performances side by side, and Scobell more than holds his own. Young Adam even remarks at one point that all of the blood went from his brains to his Ryan Reynolds physique. And, during an action scene, Young Adam delivers the same ‘Superhero Landing’ punchline Reynolds famously delivered in Deadpool.
Tone And Comedy
Time travel movies are always a risky proposition. How ‘science fiction’ do you go, and how do you balance the scifi with the comedy and/or drama?
The Adam Project takes an Action/Comedy approach similar to Ryan Reynolds and Director Shawn Levy‘s 2021 Action/Comedy, Free Guy. We get just enough of the time travel element to understand the basics of the scenario, and the potential paradoxes it represents; but The Adam Project does not dwell on the technical details.
The focus in The Adam Project remains with the relationship between our two Adams and their relationships with the key people in their shared life. We see Young Adam poorly dealing with his Mom after the death of his Father. We see Adult Adam dealing with his long lost wife Laura, played by Zoe Saldana. And, we see Young and Adult Adam with their Dad Louis.
The balance between the emotional honesty and the Comedy is perfectly maintained throughout the film, while mixing in enough Action to keep the film moving.
The Bad – The Adam Project
Vancouver For Seattle
Vancouver, British Columbia is a popular filming location due to a favorable exchange rate, and highly talented pool of local movie production personnel. And, Vancouver gets used as a stand in for Seattle due to the geographic closeness and similarities between the two border neighbors.
However, as a Seattle native, I, Dragon Movie Guy, have some superficial and nitpicking bones to pick with this film.
The location of Sorian Industries literally jumps 20 miles in different directions depending on which angle the visual effects people decide to do the set extensions for the building from.
The Adam Project Instant Movie Review
From one angle, Maya Sorian, played by Catherine Keener, has her office clearly looking out from the tip of West Seattle looking back at downtown. From an exterior angle of the building, the location appears to have moved 25 miles to the northern shores of Lake Washington. And, from yet another angle, the building again shifts ACROSS Puget Sound to Bainbridge Island.
Obviously, all of these nitpicks have nothing to do with the quality of the film, or how much I enjoyed watching it. But, from a Production standpoint, Editors and Producers from Vancouver should know the layout of their nearest American metropolitan neighbor. C’mon Deadpool! Get it right! 😉
The Review – The Adam Project
Best described as E.T. meets Back To The Future and Back To The Future 2, The Adam Project is a fun, yet emotionally honest look at what it would be like to go back in time to save the world with yourself.
As the opening of the film openly states; ‘Time travel exists. You just don’t know it yet.’
Walker Scobell aptly plays the Young Adam from the present, who already has Ryan Reynolds’ distinct intelligent smart ass comebacks down pat, as well as his love of the ladies — stopping to hit on a classmate in the hall while running away from his bullies.
Ryan Reynolds stars and gets in his usual Ryan Reynolds witticisms, but openly shares the focus with his co-stars in clearly quarantine-related limited screen time. Given the two week quarantine actors have had to wait out while traveling across the border, The Adam Project definitely made the most with limited shooting days for big name actors doing smaller roles.
Zoe Saldana, Mark Ruffalo, and Jennifer Garner have limited scenes to make the most out of their screen time, and all deliver with little screen time. Garner playing the grieving widow and frustrated single mom; Ruffalo playing the deceased but still scientist dad; and Saldana as the stranded wife all add to the film.
The special effects look good and the Cinematography look great for a straight to streaming Netflix release. And extensive (and expensive) de-aging effects look good for a film with a presumably non-theatrical release budget.
The Adam Project stuns with an emotionally honest and heartfelt core surrounded by fun action and Ryan Reynolds perfected comedy. Themes of love and loss don’t overwhelm, but speak truth to the emotional scars from losing a parent at a young age.
Go stream this film! A fun, fast-paced 106 minute time travel trip SciFi Action Comedy, well worth the price of this month’s Netflix Subscription.
Additional Information
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Score
Score
Review Nation Score
From the same guys who brought us Free Guy, The Adam Project brings Ryan Reynolds in contact with his younger self to save the world.