Directed by Shawn Levy
Starring Ryan Reynolds, Walker Scobell, Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo, Catherine Keener and Zoe Saldana

On one hand, it’s nice to get acquainted with a time-travel movie that isn’t constantly shifting between timelines and is plain and simple to follow. On the other hand, The Adam Project has applied a plain and simple approach all-round and is surprisingly rather bland.

In the year 2050, pilot Adam Reed (Ryan Reynolds) is wounded en route to the year 2018 and consequently crash-lands in 2022. There’s no mention or sight of anything covid-related. Instead, Adam meets his 12-year-old self (a memorable debut performance from Walker Scobell), who is being bullied at school and giving attitude to his mother (Jennifer Garner) at home after the recent death of his father (Mark Ruffalo). As he engages in conversation with his younger self, adult Adam realises he has the unique opportunity to right numerous wrongs and alter the course of young Adam’s future. Standing in his way is Maya Sorian (Catherine Keener), the leader of the 2050 world.

The Adam Project utilises every facet of its premise, story, and all of its central characters to go into retrospective redemption overdrive. While this does give the movie dimension and opens the door for welcomed poignancy to the genre, its content is far too familiar and easily foreseeable. Extra burden is then placed onto the shoulders of the typical lines of witty dialogue we’ve come to know and love Ryan Reynolds for. There is a sufficient enough supply of them in The Adam Project, but they lack a certain sharpness in writing and delivery compared to what we’ve seen in previous and similar films such as Free Guy (also directed by Shawn Levy) and the Deadpool movies. In fact, if I’m entirely honest, this was a rather tired performance from Ryan Reynolds. The other potential plus that The Adam Project had going for it was its visual design and production. I’m not sure what budget this movie was working with, but its CGI work is very noticeable and didn’t impress or appeal to me whatsoever.

Just scrapes in 3 stars.

The Adam Project is showing exclusively on Netflix.

Review by Leigh for Moviedoc

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