Recently, Netflix released its latest collaboration with Ryan Reynolds (following on the heels of Red Notice and 6 Underground). The latest film is called The Adam Project, a sci-fi action flick in the mode of classic 1980s style science fiction movies.
The film lands right in a Netflix sweet spot, combining an A-list actor (actually a couple) with some 80s vibe (like Stranger Things) and a classic sci-fi time travel story. Check out our not too spoiler-filled review below!
What’s it About?
The Adam Project features Reynolds as Adam Reed, at least one version of him. The movie kicks off with the Reynolds version of Adam (Big Adam) stealing a starship in 2050. He opens a wormhole to escape a pursuing ship.
We then jump to 2020, where we meet a much younger version of Adam (Young Adam) who is in his early teens. Young Adam is dealing with the aftermath of the death of his father a year earlier, along with his mom, Ellie (played by Jennifer Garner). The actor playing Young Adam (Walker Scobell) does a pretty solid job of being a younger version of the staple character Reynolds tends to play, i.e. wisecracking, ascorbic, and too smart for his own good.
You can imagine how that personality plays in school, especially when the kid is also smaller than average and a bit of an outsider. Basically, Young Adam spends his days getting picked on and beaten up. And then going home and giving his mom no slack, while she is also grieving the loss of her husband.
Into this family drama drops Big Adam when his starship (time ship?) crashed in the woods near the Reed family home. It turns out that Big Adam was trying to go back to a slightly different time, but got his coordinates wrong.
The two Adams meet (a definite no-no for time travelers) and form a bit of an oddball buddy pairing as Big Adam works to repair his ship. Of course, things don’t go as planned and soldiers from the future arrive to take Big Adam back with them. He’s not having it, as we begin to learn there is a conspiracy in the future that has resulted in the loss of Big Adam’s wife on a mission to the past. Big Adam doesn’t buy the story. Using his spaceship (he is a pilot in the future), he illegally travels back to the past and find her or what happened to her.
The Time Travel Tropes
Any movie about time travel has to set up some ground rules. And in The Adam Project, they keep it pretty loose. Time travel is real. Adam’s father was actually the physicist whose work created the foundation for time travel to work, before his untimely death in a car accident.
We’re not sure what the folks in the future are doing with the power of time travel, but there is a rule about not meeting your past self and potentially messing with the timeline. There is a fun spot where Big Adam pokes fun at the idea of a Multiverse (hello Marvel Cinematic Universe). He says that the theory is that if you go back in time and change something, it will ripple forward in time. Eventually your memory will simply incorporate the change as if it was always that way. This will matter not only in how Big Adam impacts Young Adam, but also a second time-travel trip the duo will take together to help solve the problem facing the future.
A Nod to Marvel
Along with the fun Multiverse joke, this movie is filled with Marvel movie actors. Ryan Reynolds has already played Deadpool in 3 movies (two actual Deadpool movies and also in The Wolverine). Jennifer Garner was Electra in 2 long-gone Marvel movies (Daredevil and Electra). M
ark Ruffalo, who plays Adam’s father, is well-known as the most recent actor to play The Hulk in the MCU. Zoe Saldana, who plays Big Adam’s wife, Laura, is certainly well known to MCU fans as Gamora from 3 films (both existing Guardians of the Galaxy films, along with Avengers: Endgame). We’ll see Reynolds, Saldana, and Ruffalo in future MCU movies and series as well.
Watch it or Not?
The Adam Project isn’t a great movie. It’s not going to get any Academy Award nominations, but it’s also a generally entertaining romp through time, with some fun action and enjoyable performances. So, if a somewhat disposable sci-fi, time travel, action flick with an 80s spin sounds like your bag, absolutely put this on your watch list on Netflix.
