Look, I’m not one to expect heartfelt cinematic mushy moments on Netflix – but, this film has surprised me with more than enough of those.
‘The Adam Project’ was touted mostly as a time-travel science fiction film with Ryan Reynolds’ trash-talking mouth.
And you totally get that in this film, but it’s more than that and it’s actually my favorite new release on Netflix right now.
The Adam Project is a science fiction action comedy film directed by Shawn Levy from a screenplay written by Jonathan Tropper, T.S. Nowlin, Jennifer Flackett, and Mark Levin.
It stars Ryan Reynolds, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Garner, Walker Scobell, Catherine Keener, and Zoe Saldana.
The film is rated PG-13 for violence/action, language, and suggestive references and is 106 minutes long.
In a dystopian 2050, fighter pilot Adam Reed (Reynolds) steals his time jet and escapes through time on a rescue mission to 2018.
Unfortunately, he’s been shot and is being pursued by another jet in the moments leading up to his time jump via a wormhole machine.
This leads to him accidentally crash-land in 2022 instead, where Adam meets his 12-year-old self who is struggling with the recent death of their father Louis (Ruffalo) in a car accident.
Young Adam (Scobell) is a big-mouth, scrawny asthmatic kid who keeps getting into fights with bullies and giving his mom Ellie (Garner) a hard time.
Adam reluctantly enlists his younger self’s help to repair his jet and reveals that he is looking for his wife, Laura (Saldana), who was supposedly killed in a crash while on a mission in 2018.
Adam is being chased by Maya Sorian (Keener), the leader of the dystopian world, and her lieutenant Christos (Mallari) who attempts to apprehend Adam and take him back to 2050.
The Adams are soon rescued by Laura who reveals that she had escaped an assassination attempt and was left stranded in the past – 2018 to be exact.
Laura had learned that Sorian had traveled back in time and altered the past in order to give herself control of time travel and the future.
Laura hints that it was Sorian who killed his father in order to keep time travel to herself.
She then urges Adam to travel back to 2018 and destroy time travel, which was created by his father Louis (Ruffalo), to set things right and save the future.
Then, Sorian attacks and Laura sacrifices herself so that the two Adams can escape.
Chased by Sorian and with only enough power left for a one-time jump, Adam and his younger self jump back to 2018.
In 2018, the two Adams attempt to enlist Louis’ help, but he refuses out of concern for the scientific impact on the time stream.
That leads to a fight between all three as they try to come to grips with the situation at hand.
Unfortunately, that also means that things get too real and heartfelt – like a poorly-monitored therapy session.
Overall, the film is great for young and old alike, plus, I always enjoy Ryan Reynolds’ snappy lines and conversations with his child self.
