The Adam Project
The Adam Project is streaming on Netflix at the time of publication.
SCREENPLAY: B
A daring space pilot (Ryan Reynolds) travels back in time to save the world. The wrinkle is that he needs to team up with his twelve year old self (Walker Scobell) to do it.
It’s a spectacular idea for a story. The adventure is pleasantly predictable; it’s just not always clear and doesn’t reach its potential. Surprisingly, the emotional element holds you by the hair and shoves a sliced open jalapeno pepper under your nose. Which is a bizarre yet totally accurate way of describing the specific type of tears trying to bust out of my eyes at certain moments of this movie.
ACTING: B+
Ryan Reynolds’s acting career sometimes feels like watching a multiverse unfold. We’ve seen the super-antihero version of Ryan Reynolds. The video game NPC version. The international art-thief version. He doesn’t become anybody new. He’s always (ok, not ALWAYS) Ryan Reynolds in a different situation. Dwayne Johnson has a similar career. Someone like Oscar Isaac does not. So if you like Ryan Reynolds, you’ll love the space pilot version. I do.
The entire cast is great. Walker Scobell does a tremendous job as the middle school version of Ryan Reynolds. He can trade zingers and share emotion as well as the genuine article. Zoe Saldana nails everything about her part, and the Jennifer Garner-Mark Ruffalo reunion is all sorts of adorable.
CRAFT: C
Lots of interesting choices here, particularly the soundtrack. Are they going for a Guardians of the Galaxy feeling? Are they going old school to reinforce the time travel motif? Or is it just a vibe they’re laying down? The soundtrack has too many questions and not enough good answers.
I always enjoy seeing ways a director masks massive bloodshed and casualties in their movie. George Lucas invented the stormtrooper for this reason. They never bleed, and we never see their faces. It makes stomaching intergalactic slaughter much more simple. Shawn Levy avoids making people sick by having his bad guys explode in a colorful poof. It’s kind of cool, kind of not, but the carnage does goes down smoothly.
MEET THE PARENTS (Elective Class): A
Back to the Future didn’t invent the trope of meeting your parents while time traveling. But the amusing and acute way it combined those two ideas was a game changer. It’s certainly an inspiration for The Adam Project. There seems to be a rush of films exploring this concept. Turning Red lets Meilin meet mom when both were at a similar, crucial moment of their lives. The extraordinary film Petit Maman (coming out soon) follows a young girl who meets her mother as a young girl.
The Adam Project simultaneously navigates this idea with fun and depth. The depth largely comes from the clever wrinkle of having the parent meet two versions of their child at once- as an adult and a child. And the scene where Reynolds sees Garner at the bar is the most touching scene in any film I’ve seen this year. The movie’s thoughts about family relationships will stay with me a long while.
FINAL COMMENTS:
The Adam Project feels like it’s going to be a chaotic time traveling adventure with a cute message. Instead it’s an okay adventure with a message so profound that even Ryan Reynold’s delightfully smarmy charm can’t smother it. No matter how hysterically he delivers a line. No matter how high he raises an eyebrow. No matter how exasperated he screams. It’s a fun romp that transforms into an unexpectedly powerful movie.
Parents and kids can’t always be on equal terms. That would spawn chaos. But no one is one, single thing. I am a father. A son. A friend. A husband. A dork. Both parents and kids need to widen their view of each other once in a while. The wider the view, the wider and deeper the relationship. And that’s a relationship everyone deserves to have.