‘The Adam Project’ Review: Ryan Reynolds Film Is Charming, Wholesome And Uses Time Travel To Make A Point About Parent-Child Relationships
Most time travel movies and shows are concerned with the sci-fi aspect of it all. How do we do it? Will it be a remodelled DeLorean, a blue phone booth, an ancient stone circle, or three turns of a Time-Turner that will get us there? And what needs to happen once we get to the intended era, or rather what mustn’t happen—contact with our parallel self or doing anything that might set into motion the ripple effect. You know the drill. The Adam Project, also a time travel flick on Netflix, concerns itself rather little with the mechanics and rules of it all. Why? Because star and producer Ryan Reynolds is a free guy who has always broken rules, whether it is on screen as a merc, an NPC, or as an advertiser. So why would this outing be any different? The Shawn Levy directed film, which also stars Walker Scobell, Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo, Zoe Saldaña, and Catherine Keener is more about evoking nostalgia and catharsis, and in that it succeeds fully well.
The Adam Project is written by Jonathan Tropper, a novelist and screenwriter whose previous work, This Is Where I Leave You was also directed by Levy, T.S. Nowlin, Jennifer Flackett, and Mark Levin. Tobias Schliessler is the director of Photography, and it is edited by Dean Zimmerman and Jonathan Corn. The music is by Rob Simonsen.
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What’s The Adam Project About?
Ryan Reynolds is Adam Reed, a time-travelling pilot from 2050 who travels back in time looking for his wife, Laura, also a pilot who got lost in time during a mission. Adam ends up making some very forbidden parallel contact with his younger self and telling him the truth. Adam suspects Maya Sorian has something to do with her disappearance. Sorian controls time travel in the future, and Adam and Sorian have a complicated history. She was a friend of his deceased father, Louis Reed who might’ve accidentally invented time travel before he died in an accident.
Now old and young Adam must thwart Sorian, get to Adam’s father before he makes this discovery, and stop him from ever inventing time travel because life sucks in the future with it as a possibility.
The Adam Project is one of those films that focuses on the more humane answers to the ‘What if travelling back in time was possible?’ question. There are no dire consequences, and most of the things sort themselves out in the end. The comparisons are being drawn with E.T, Back To The Future, and Stranger Things, although I lean more towards E.T. because Stranger Things does up the stakes sometimes. Also, the whole young kid discovering a creature from another plane of existence, bonding with it and then having to see them go is so E.T. The stakes never get too high in this film that you might actually worry about the characters. But then, you do care about these characters because the actors do such a good job of it. The film’s focus on family, nostalgia and emotions will remind you a lot of the 80s flicks in this genre which did the same. Of course, the visual effects are better, so it looks kaafi slick with its cool action and jet flying sequences, helped amply by the wit and banter between Reynolds, Scobell and Saldaña weaved in.
Ryan Reynolds and Walker Scobell make this a hilarious and charming joyride!
I love Ryan Reynolds, okay? It’s not the OMG he is so hot kinda love, although, definitely THAT. This is more of an “I’d watch him even if he were simply reading the Yellow Pages to the camera because he’s just that hilarious” kinda love. It’s the love that makes me wish I walked into the wrong building in college, bumped into him, and he walked me to my right class, thereby starting our love story that ended with us being married and owners of our own gin and tonic empire.
He pulls off Adam Reed just like most of his roles have been so far—as an extension of his own persona. I know a lot of people think that Ryan Reynolds does a lot of the same kind of characters, whether it is The Proposal, 6 Underground, Detective Pikachu, Red Notice or Deadpool, but you know what? I don’t care! He is hilarious, entertaining and an absolute delight to watch on screen, and his brand of humour is so palatable. He’s also bankable in that you know you’re going to have a good time watching him on screen because he looks good, and can do justice to romance, action, and comedy, so why would I want to give that up? I love Shah Rukh Khan for the very same reasons and I don’t want him to change either! So yes, Reynolds can experiment, and he should, but I love that he chooses to do films like The Adam Project and Free Guy with Shawn Levy, a perfect collaborator who knows how to play to Reynolds’ strengths.
What’s noteworthy here is the acting debut by Walker Scobell, who matches step with Reynolds so beautifully! My favourite scenes are all between these two, and I swear during the fight scene when he screams “What is happening?!”, it was such an on-point Ryan Reynolds impression, the casting guys should absolutely get a pat on their back for this one!
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The film is brimming with nostalgia, and the 13 Going On 30 reunion is the icing on this cake
Oh man, another masterstroke was to cast Bruce Banner actor Mark Ruffalo as a physicist who accidentally invented time travel, and then cast his 13 Going On 30 costar Jennifer Garner as his wife, Ellie, and Adam’s mother. Not only is this reunion sweet, because you could totally think Matt and Jenna got together and became parents to Adam, but also because 13 Going On 30 does kinda sorta fit perfectly with the theme of this film, i.e. knowledge about your future older self that makes you change the way you do things as your younger self!
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Could this be any more perfect?
I think the parent-child dynamic is my other favourite thing about The Adam Project and the reason why it really touched my heart and made me smile. Garner and Ruffalo brought back that easy chemistry and made their family a totally believable one. And I think the scenes between Adam and his parents play out so well, hitting the right feels because I was kaafi emotional by the end of it!
The Adam Project is a charming, wholesome film about the hindsight we all wish we had in our relationships
Yes, this is a sci-fi film. And yes we do have time-travelling jets, particle accelerators, cool gadgets and futuristic weapons thrown into the mix, to give it the proper look and feel. And if it were a threadbare film focusing on just those aspects, then it would be rather forgettable, because we’ve seen better. No, what makes The Adam Project such a wholesome outing, the kind you know Ryan Reynolds can sell the hell out of, is that it speaks to a very human desire to control the one thing that is constantly slipping out of our hands. Time.
How many times have we done those assignments of “Write a letter to your younger self?” How many times have we wished we could turn back time and fix our issues with loved ones before they became estranged and there were regrets. How many times have we said things like “My childhood sucks” but only because we didn’t know that adulting would be a whole different level of sucky. Or how many times have we remembered our childhood differently, only to realise later that we might not have a perfect memory or the right perspective to look at things back then?
Actor Ryan Reynolds, during an interview for the film, has mentioned how one of the scenes in the movie is very close to his heart because it is inspired by his own relationship with his father. A child being angry at his deceased parent their entire life, thinking they didn’t love them enough, only to realise that the anger was because the parent died and left them is something that makes me tear up even now, as I write it, just as easily as it did while watching that scene play out. Even Adam’s relationship with his mother is a strained one, and the catharsis that his older self gets from telling her she is a great mom after his younger self gave her a hard time, hits right in the feels!
Of course, it leaves it open for debate how this hindsight, when shared with young Adam, might change how he grows up and therefore alter the timeline in some way. But as I mentioned before, The Adam Project isn’t too concerned with smaller changes that might “affect the timeline”, only with the bigger life and death ones.
Also Read: What To Watch This Weekend: ‘Maaran’, ‘Outlander’, ‘The Adam Project’, ‘Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ And More
Verdict
I’m about to turn 31 in exactly two days. And considering the way we live our lives now and how we’re destroying our world, I have accepted that this could very well be my mid-life crisis. So naturally, I’ve been pondering over life’s meaning, how it would be like to turn back time and correct some mistakes of the past, or tell my younger self to rebel a little more, not misunderstand my father, not hurt my mother, and tell my late grandfather how much I love him before he leaves us.
It could’ve been that, and my liking for Ryan Reynolds’ brand of humour, that made me enjoy The Adam Project so much. But I have a feeling that the film has enough heart and humour to appeal to most of its audience. Luckily, unlike some recent disasters, the film’s marketing has been on-point and the expectations from the film are in the right direction.
I think lovers of wholesome, feel-good family entertainers, who especially enjoy old-school 80s nostalgia are going to have a great time watching The Adam Project!
The Adam Project is currently streaming on Netflix.
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