The Adam Project is a new offering from Ryan Reynolds. Just like with any project with Ryan Reynolds, he is full of quick one-liners that always land perfectly, even in high-intensity situations. At the heart of this film, is time travel and young and adult Adam Reed meet one another.
In this film, we watch Adam (Ryan Reynolds) steals a spaceship in 2050 and ends up opening a wormhole, intending to reach 2018 but ends up travelling back to 2022. We then get to meet his 12-year-old self portrayed by Walker Scobell. It's interesting already to see the difference between the two Adams. Reynold’s Adam has a lot about him, and clearly is holding onto a lot of anger from his past. Compared with the 12-year-old version of Adam, he is portrayed as a bit of an asthmatic nerd, who is very sarcastic for a 12-year-old kid. It is strange to see Scobell pulling off such mature lines for his age.
Scobell takes on his role well as a younger Reynolds, but it's as we get further into the film his performance starts to improve, and feels much more settled. We see the real pain he is going through after the recent loss of his father Louis (Mark Ruffalo). Death and grief is a huge part of this film, as both young and adult Adam struggle to deal with the loss of their dad in different ways. However, Adam isn’t the only character we watch suffer from grief. Adam’s mother Ellie (Jennifer Garner) puts on a tough exterior but we also see that she is suffering as well.
The bar scene between Reynolds and Garner is a highlight. We see how both adults are suffering from grief. From this scene alone, it feels as if Garner was hugely underused, as she brings so much emotion into a scene. Yet there is a lot of love in her performance as well. What was so enjoyable about this scene was how gentle Reynolds was and how much regret his character was dealing with. It's the softness in the scene that makes it work so well and adds a lot to the mother and son relationship between Adam and Ellie.
At the heart of this film is time travel, so obviously it is mentioned a lot. For any sci-fi nerd, everyone knows that if time travel is possible, then you shouldn't meet your further or past self. That action can change the events of the future. Yet in this film, that belief doesn't matter. The mission of this film is for young and adult Adam to go and find Adam's current/future wife Laura (Zoe Saldana). It is believed that Laura got stuck in 2018. Thus, the Adams go in search of Laura and get caught up in a trap.
Reynolds and Saldana work well together in scenes. The love between these two characters felt real. Even the pain both go through when they part is heart-wrenching. Yet it does feel their time together was over much too quickly, considering we spend so much time building up to these characters coming together. This is where the plot of the film gets messy.
The Adam Project is definitely a film about time travel, but they jump around quite a lot. The quest goes from finding Laura, to jumping even further back in time to stop the Adam Project from ever existing. That means the Adams must go back and stop their dad. It all gets a bit silly and the ethics of time travel kind of go out of the window.
Overall, the jokes land well in this film, and the action sequences are fun. There are plenty of plot twists that will keep your attention. It is interesting to see how both Adams are dealing with the grief over their dad. Time travel is made simple in this film, which makes this easy and enjoyable to watch. At the heart, a sci-fi comedy that also tackles broken families.
If you enjoyed this review, then give it a like. While you are here why don't you check out some more of our reviews below!
Performance | 4/5 |
Enjoyment | 4.5/5 |
Overall Rating | 4/5 |
Comments