“The Adam Project” on Netflix has an amazing ensemble cast. It’s basically Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) meets Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) meets Elektra (Jennifer Garner) meets Gsciamor (Zoe Saldaña). So we have a star cast that’s been a part of some of the highest grossing Hollywood movies, getting together for this science-fiction adventure directed by Shawn Levy.
Like most Hollywood movies based on time travel, The Adam Project starts with an overused trope—a dystopian future and the devastation of mankind. (Maybe that’s where the current Russia-Ukraine war is leading us to as well.) So it’s Earth 2050. The opening scenes show fighter pilot Adam Reed (Reynolds) trying to fly back to 2018 on his time-jet, while being shot at by a bunch of enemy jets. He wants to find his wife Laura (Saldaña) who was left back in the past after a failed mission.
But Adam accidentally crash-lands in 2022, where he meets his younger self (Walker Scobell). The 12-year-old Adam has just lost his father Louis Reed (Ruffalo) and is struggling to cope with the situation alongside his mother Ellie (Garner). Adam is soon followed into 2022 by Maya Sorian (Catherine Ann Keener), the scientist behind time travel who has taken over the world in the future.
Maya wants to take Adam back with her, while Adam, with the help of the younger Adam, plans to get to 2018 so that they can destroy time travel altogether and save the world. A struggle ensues between the two colliding parties as the rest of the characters get pulled into the battle.
The story of The Adam Project unfolds in multiple time-streams. While it is not difficult to keep up with the film’s timelines, someone who’s watched many time travel movies will feel like this particular movie sort of redefines the time travel paradoxes. Although there are explanations behind its time travel theories, they are hardly convincing. It was quite difficult to wrap my head around a timeline where three Adams exist at the same time. Or how inconsequential each encounter between people of different timelines was to the future.
The time travel paradox is not the only thing that does not sit well in the film. Its intended audience also seems unclear. The Adam Project wriggles somewhere between a family movie and an out-and-out action adventure flick. At times it wants the young Adam to become the hero of the movie while in some other scenes, he’s just a helpless kid who needs protection from adults, even if that adult is his own future self.
The 12-year-old Adam is also pictured as physically weak, small for his age and with the gift of the gab that lands him in trouble with school bullies. His transformation into the 2050 Adam, an excellent pilot and a great fighter who can take on a bunch of enemies with breaking sweat, is never explained, leaving the audience with too many unanswered questions.
There are many such flaws right through the film’s 1hr 46mins length and the audience never gets to breathe and let things sink in. When things get slow, they’re just slow without the intensity that would make them interesting. It is indeed strange to think that a movie with an instantly recognizable action adventure lineup would cast them in half-baked roles. Talent goes painfully wasted in The Adam Project.
The film has its moments though, with Reynolds getting a lot of screen time along with his young co-actor. Their interactions are the highlights of the film while the rest of the cast is just there to fill in slots. The visual effects, for a film of this genre, are also average and not worth wasting a paragraph on.
Who should watch it?
The Adam Project is mindless if you don’t think about it too much. Then the film becomes a decently paced action-adventure that could impress the audience of this genre. There’s also a bit of family drama embedded if that’s what you prefer.
Rating: 2.5 stars
Genre: Action/adventure
Director: Shawn Levy
Actors: Ryan Reynolds, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Garner
Run time: 1hr 46mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE8HIsIrq4o
