The Adam Project will release on Netflix on 11th March 2022. The Shawn Levy directed film has a run time of 1 hour and 46 minutes and is written by Jonathan Tropper, T. S. Nowlin, Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin.
The Adam Project Cast
- Ryan Reynolds as Adam Reed
- Walker Scobell as Young Adam Reed
- Zoe Saldaña as Laura
- Catherine Keener as Maya Sorian
The Adam Project Plot
Adam Reed crash lands into 2022 and is now subjected to the people who were chasing him and his 2-year-old self. Knowing the stuff of future and meeting his past self, he is now required to save all time and humankind along with carry a heavy heart.
The Adam Project Review
Time travel is a theme that has been explored in multiple movies. Let’s start with Back To The Future. Great idea. Amazingly unique but all because of the time it released. It was new then. On the other hand is Interstellar; regardless of when it is viewed, the movie is going to have the same impact. It has a great story, perfect cast and in terms of execution, it is arguably the best time travel movie there. Do not fight me on this.
With this logic, The Adam Project should also have been a timeless film (get it?). It had a perfect cast; Ryan Reynolds, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Garner and Catherine Keener. The story could be said to be innovative but the execution is what took the timeless factor away.
Before getting into the mucky, I would like to mention that The Adam Project had an absolutely great thought. No one would voluntarily revisit 2020 to 2022 years. Adam mentioned how those years were the worst and how he actually wanted to go to 2018. Relatable. Even with things easing out and the world opening up again, do I really think 2022 will be great? No. Adam Reed seems to agree with my idea. Why should I not believe a ripped man from the future?
He also happens to be exactly like Ryan Reynolds. With every passing movie, Ryan takes on characters that are the same and almost similar to his public identity. They are interchangeable. At this point, I love Ryan Reynolds more as a social media celebrity and Blake Lively’s husband than his characters and movies. Keeping his other movies aside, Adam is a great character. A sarcastic man who has many emotional layers to him even though the 12-year-old in him hasn’t completely vanished. They had a farting bullet wound so it isn’t a stretch to say that this movie tries to mix time travel with blatant comedy.
Another great part of the movie is the referencing. Terminator, Star Wars, Marvel and 13 Going On 30 are all in there. If not in terms of direct references, they are present as casting, ideas and even chemistry. Seeing Jennifer Garner with Mark Ruffalo made me melt because 13 Going On 30 deserves another movie of them grown up. Mark explaining physics to Ryan was almost as good as Bruce Banner teaching time travel rules to Deadpool. Mark Ruffalo was also playing another variant of Bruce Banner but let’s just stop at how the movie may not have even tried with Ruffalo’s character.
The movie also had the most beautiful scenes. Picturesque forest home that has a modern interior design supporting the feel of timelessness. They may have gone overboard with the concept of time in the movie but they did make it look beautiful. When the shots weren’t of the Adams bantering in the forest, then it was them bantering in an aesthetically pleasing town and also in a geek’s wet dream of a space jet. Both the Adam’s also participated in some really advanced fight sequences. Not advanced in terms of the choreography but in terms of the entire concept of it.
The entire story was not concept or technicality heavy but yet the execution really tried making it so. The fact that the young Adam cared more about knowing that he gets laid in the future shows that it was not only the audience that was sick of the technicality and concept explanations. Unlike other time travel movies, the story had a comparatively easier science to follow. While in the first half, one does believe that in this story, time is not affected if the two versions of the same person meet, the second half, Adam’s father seems to say otherwise. The entire inherent idea was neither explained properly or given any substantial context to. Which is in consistency with rest of the story lines. Every theme, thought and nuance was spoken out but not explored even a bit.
The most shocking aspect that should have been at least shown is the future. Through the movie we have heard Ryan’s Adam mention multiple times how the future is really grim and bad. He even said that a good day in 2050 is like Terminator. Yet, we never see it or even hear about what exactly is so torturous. The antagonist is clear. We don’t know why they are the antagonist but their right hand man has a burnt face so like every movie they have to be the bad guys right?
Moving ahead, the young Adam was ignored way too many times. After the first few times, it wasn’t even intentional. Ryan’s Adam just got a lot more attention, even from his parents. Overall their entire dynamic was super confusing. What didn’t help was that Ryan and Walker looked so different from each other. Hair colours can change but in a movie that is dependent on future and past self, the basic similarities should be present. They could have been blonde or brunette, why were they both! If the plot wasn’t obvious from the beginning, I would have said this differenced rendered me confused.
The Adam Project had too many endings. What this means is that, the movie felt like it ended multiple times through the 1 hour 45 minutes running time. If someone stopped the film at around 30 minutes, the scene would feel like a conclusion. The movie almost never reached a peak climax point. This could also be because the movie had way too many and a little too long chase and fight sequences. They were unnecessary and after sometime it lost the futuristic charm to it too.
The Movie Culture Synopsis
The Adam Project did not live up to the hype or the wait at all. It could be the high expectations that Reynolds brings with him along with Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Garner (both of who deserved more screen time) who added onto the expectations.
While it was a cute movie, it isn’t something I would rave about to anyone. Would recommend it for nostalgia kicks and a good conversational time pass.
