The Adam Project Review: A Sci-Fi Trope Fest Infused with Heart and Humor
If you were expecting The Adam Project to blow your mind, you were probably disappointed. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good time.
I’m not much for science fiction typically, but I knew I had to watch this one. Most people I know are referring to it as “the new Ryan Reynolds movie,” but that’s not why I wanted to see it.
I’ll be honest, the Jennifer Garner/Mark Ruffalo reunion of it all is what made me tune in.
Of course, this isn’t a romantic comedy. This is the story of Adam Reed, a man living in the year 2050. He uses time travel to go way back to 2022 to stop a whole bunch of bad things from happening in his life. Chaos ensues.
We’ve seen this trope a million times before. He goes back in time and encounters his younger self, speaks with the father who died when he was young, reunites with the wife he thought was dead forever, and has an earnest conversation with the mother he never appreciated.
But even though we’ve seen this kind of thing before, The Adam Project still gives us this story in an enjoyable way. Ryan Reynolds uses the quick humor and subtle facial expressions for which he’s become legendary to bring moments that actually, at some points, have me laughing out loud.
Young Adam, played by Walker Scobell, is sweet and silly but a little bit of a brat. In other words, he’s a convincing version of Young Ryan Reynolds. Those are some pretty legendary shoes to fill, but he’s impressive in the way he’s able to emulate Reynolds’ expressions while also adding his own touch to the role.
If the two Adams or Louis and Ellie Reed were the only ones in every scene, it would have been much easier to pay attention the whole way through. It’s not a long movie (1 hour and 46 minutes, to be precise), but it does drag at times.
Between the better scenes, we have some filler storylines with some frankly disturbing CGI de-aging work. Even setting that aside, it’s sometimes unclear what exactly they’re all trying to do.
I think Older Adam is trying to stop the technology of time travel from becoming real. Also, somehow, he’s trying to go to several different places in time. He’s also trying to stop his dad and his wife from dying. But he’s also trying to make sure nothing major happens to change the course of history too drastically.
I think.
In the end, though, you don’t always care if you know exactly what is going on or not. The tender moments between Ellie and Louis, and then later between the Adams and their dad, are worth a bit of confusion.
At the heart of this movie, it’s all about what we’d do if we could go back in time to talk to someone we lost. Those are the moments that make this a movie worth watching, even if it’s a movie we’ve seen done (and done better) several times before.
The concept of the older version of someone being able to speak with their younger self is an interesting one. It’s disappointing that even though we get a lot of interaction between the Adams, it isn’t as much as I would have liked.
Most of the time, they’re just hanging out in a way that makes it easy to forget that they’re technically the same person. They have a few earnest moments, but most of it is just banter. Not uninteresting, but perhaps wasted on what could have been a stronger plot.
There are plot holes and questions that go unanswered, and you have to stretch your imagination quite a bit when it comes to the physics and science of some of it. None of that is resolved by the end, but the film still doesn’t feel like a waste of time.
The Adam Project is fun to watch. At the end of the day, shouldn’t that be the purpose of most movies we watch?
With a cast this lovable, the boring or confusing parts aren’t as bothersome. It’s ridiculous and predictable and unoriginal, but it’s a good time.
What did you think of The Adam Project? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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The Adam Project is now streaming on Netflix.
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