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Science fiction author David Brin says there is just one reason for time travel: “Make it didn’t happen.” The idea of correcting, no, preventing one mistake is an irresistible fantasy. And whether it's about protecting the future mother of the only hero who can lead a rebellion against Skynet or making sure your own parents fall in love so that you and your siblings will be born, the movies have given us some of our favorite stories of rescue operations by traveling through time. “The Adam Project” is a popcorn pleasure from the director and the star of last year’s “ Free Guy .”

It begins with a banger, indeed one of the banger-iest songs of all time, Spencer Davis Group’s 1966 “Gimme Some Lovin’.” It is not there to tell us where we are in time or anything about rocket ship pilot Adam Reed ( Ryan Reynolds ). No matter, it’s just there to bring a jolt of energy as we join the story mid-chase. We know Reynolds can play other characters, but here he is what he does most and best, a snarky action hero. “What are you doing, Captain?” the instantly recognizable voice of Catherine Keener asks over speaker. “I think it’s pretty obvious I’m stealing this jet.” We are told that it is 2050 and time travel exists but we don’t know it yet. And we can see that Adam is in trouble. Both he and the ship have been hit. “I’m sorry to interrupt what I’m sure is going to be a really scary threat,” he says as he jams her tracking system and evades capture by escaping through a wormhole that takes him back to 2022.

Meanwhile, in the present, Adam Reed, age 12 ( Walker Scobell ), is getting suspended for the third time for fighting with a bully. He and his mother ( Jennifer Garner as Ellie) are still mourning for Adam’s father, who was killed in a car accident more than a year before, and he is angry about that, about being small for his age, about pretty much everything and so he is very big with the snarky comebacks, even when he knows it means a beating.

Big Adam arrives at Young Adam’s house (his old house), injured, with a damaged ship. Reynolds and Scobell are a terrific match, with the same rhythms, both in observation and in snark. They also have the same scar under their chins and the same watch, their dad’s watch. It does not take long for Young Adam to figure out he is talking to his future self. It takes a little longer for Big Adam to realize that his younger self deserves some compassion. While he tells Young Adam that it is all of the trauma he experiences that will give him the strength and cynicism he relies on as an adult, he learns that maybe a little less trauma will be beneficial to them both.

It also does not take long for the bad guys to arrive, along with two key figures I will not spoil. “The Adam Project” deftly balances the action with the comedy inherent in conflict between the two Adams. Both versions of Adam are exceptionally good at getting on the nerves of everyone around them, and it's fun to see how they are at the same time irritated by and appreciative of each other’s smart-aleck comebacks. Big Adam does not want to be reminded about how unhappy and angry he was as a 12-year-old. Young Adam is as thrilled at the prospect of growing up to look like Ryan Reynolds as he is to learn that there is such a thing as time travel and ride in a real space ship. He does not understand how unhappy and angry his future self is, but we do.

The characters make references to “The Terminator” and “ Back to the Future ” but the film also draws from the underrated “ Frequency ” and from stories going back to the myth of Orpheus. And fans of “13 Going on 30” will appreciate seeing Garner and Mark Ruffalo as a devoted couple. (Ruffalo unfortunately does not have any scenes with co-star Zoe Saldaña, who played his wife in the indie gem “ Infinitely Polar Bear .”)

The film more than delivers on the promise of its premise with better-than-expected production design from Claude Paré for the futuristic gizmos and special effects by Scanline VFX for the way they are deployed. The action and fight scenes are very well staged, especially one with a tender reunion in the midst of the mayhem. Big Adam’s warming to his younger version gives the story some heart in the midst of the mayhem as well. There is genuine tenderness in his realization that anger does not prevent sadness and that second chances are possible. The action and fantasy are fun, but this is what families will want to talk about after they watch it together.

On Netflix tomorrow.

Nell Minow is the Contributing Editor at RogerEbert.com.

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The Adam Project (2022)

Rated PG-13 for violence/action, language and suggestive references.

106 minutes

Ryan Reynolds as Big Adam

Walker Scobell as Young Adam

Zoe Saldana

Mark Ruffalo as Louis Reed

Jennifer Garner as Ellie

Catherine Keener as Sorien

Jonathan Tropper
T.S. Nowlin
Jennifer Flackett

Cinematographer

Tobias A. Schliessler
Dean Zimmerman
Rob Simonsen

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‘The Adam Project’ Review: Back Talk to the Future

Ryan Reynolds plays a time traveling wise cracker in Shawn Levy’s science fiction adventure.

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By Natalia Winkelman

Early in “The Adam Project,” a pipsqueak asthmatic named Adam (Walker Scobell) and his golden retriever gallivant through the woods among shimmering falling debris. The cause of the wreckage, Adam learns, is a time jet that was crash landed by his older self (Ryan Reynolds) traveling from the future. This is pure ’80s sci-fi pastiche for the ages. Add a few flying saucer chases, cook up a quickie solution to the grandfather paradox and this movie might have fallen at the intersection of “E.T.” and “Back to the Future.”

Instead, “The Adam Project,” directed by Shawn Levy, might as well be called “The Ryan Reynolds Project.” Last summer, Levy and Reynolds teamed up under a different Hollywood juggernaut to deliver the clamorous video game flick “Free Guy.” This new movie ( on Netflix ) is a comparable package — noisy and formulaic, but still occasionally enjoyable. Reynolds recycles his trademark twerpy charisma, using quips to punctuate battle scenes that are spiced up with special effects. Mileage for the actor’s wise guy persona will vary — I’ve personally had my fill for several lifetimes, with or without time travel — and it’s hard here to separate the movie from the leading man.

This is because Reynolds imbues Adam with such excitable, exhibitionistic energy he might as well be waving jazz hands. Levy and the screenwriters, Jonathan Tropper, T.S. Nowlin, Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin, have crafted in “The Adam Project” a vehicle that enables Reynolds to multiply his shtick by two. By allying Adam with himself, not only can Reynolds poke fun at his adversaries — “your outfits are incredible,” he gushes at one point to a squad of henchman — he can actually mock his own insufferableness. “You have a very punchable face,” he tells Adam the preteen early in their peregrinations. Scobell, for his part, mirrors Reynolds’s mien with precision, making the duo feel less like Marty McFly and Doc Brown than twin sidekicks who stumbled into the spotlight.

Their adventure begins when the adult Adam, visiting 2022 from 2050, explains to his kid accomplice that time travel has ruined mankind, and impeding its invention is their only hope. Complicating the mission is Adam’s dad, Louis (Mark Ruffalo), a physicist who models traversable wormholes, and Louis’s ruthless business associate, Maya (Catherine Keener). How tampering with the past will upset the future — including Adam’s marriage to fellow insurgent Laura (Zoe Saldaña) — is a mystery that the movie declines to dwell on.

Blissfully under two hours, “The Adam Project” is no modern classic. But it does benefit from an affecting finale that pays special attention to Adam’s strained relationship with his father. Reynolds may play the smart aleck, but beneath Adam’s zingers he is compensating for a profound pain, and Louis is critical in activating his son’s tender side. It’s an unexpectedly sweet note to end on. Or perhaps it’s just that after a double dose of wise cracking, some authentic feeling is a welcome respite.

The Adam Project Rated PG-13. A little battle, a lot of prattle. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. Watch on Netflix.

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The adam project, common sense media reviewers.

Stylized violence, language in emotional time-travel tale.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Our time on earth is short. It's easier to be angr

People make personal sacrifices, including risking

Main characters are mostly White except the lead c

Frequent sci-fi action violence, plus bullying. Ki

Kissing, in one case passionately and presumably l

"S--t," partial "motherf----r," "ass," "a--hole,"

Car brands, beer signs at bar.

Adults drink wine, liquor, and beer.

Positive Messages

Our time on earth is short. It's easier to be angry than sad, but sometimes you can forget there's a difference. Family provides a child's place in the world and sense of identity. Kids don't need a parent to be perfect; they just need a parent to be there for them. Sometimes scientific discoveries can be used for negative purposes. It pays to be a nerd.

Positive Role Models

People make personal sacrifices, including risking their own lives, for the larger good of humanity. Parents and kids learn they can support each other through difficult periods rather than retreating into their own emotions. Adults and kids both cover their true emotions with sarcasm and feigned indifference. A father shares his love and pride for his grown son.

Diverse Representations

Main characters are mostly White except the lead character's wife, who is Black. Main characters are "nerds" and scientists, and a running theme is how being a nerd can pay off.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Frequent sci-fi action violence, plus bullying. Kids tease and punch an asthmatic kid who's smaller than them. A character has a bleeding gunshot wound. A father died in a car accident. A sympathetic character is killed. Multiple deadly fights with futuristic soldiers, some fistfights and battles between humans. Futuristic weapons kill humans and robots by shooting, stabbing, disintegrating, electrocuting, beating. A tween attacks robots with a video game-like drone system. Car chases result in cars shot at, flipped over, and exploded. A man jokes about wanting to drown an annoying kid. A character has a stash of weapons in her floor.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Kissing, in one case passionately and presumably leading to sex. Jokes about "penis," getting "laid," and a jacket that makes a man "look like a condom with buttons."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

"S--t," partial "motherf----r," "ass," "a--hole," "damn," "goddamn it," "bitch," "hell," "crap," "moron," "jeez," "jerk," "balls," "turd-burper," "loser," "pee," "frickin'," "suck." "God" and "Christ" used as exclamations.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Drinking, drugs & smoking.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Adam Project is a time-traveling mystery starring Jennifer Garner , Ryan Reynolds , and Zoe Saldana that has lots of action and humor, as well as emotional family drama that includes deaths of loved ones. A son has never properly forgiven his father for dying young and takes it out on his mother, who's also grieving. When an older version of himself shows up, he's drawn into an adventure that gives him the chance to go back in time and repair those relationships. But that adventure is quite dangerous, and while it allows the child to escape bullying kids who tease and punch him, it also puts his life in jeopardy repeatedly. Multiple deadly fights with futuristic soldiers involve weapons used to kill by shooting, stabbing (one bloody wound is treated), disintegrating, electrocuting, and beating. A tween attacks soldiers with a video game-like drone system. Car chases result in vehicles being shot at, flipped over, and exploded. A man jokes about wanting to drown an annoying kid. There's also a lot of language ("s--t," partial "motherf----r," "ass," "a--hole," "goddammit," "bitch," and more). Expect to see kissing, sexual innuendo, and drinking, too. Underlying the action are positive messages about the importance of family, the value of communicating genuine emotions, and the benefits of "being a nerd." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

Parents say (16)
Kids say (46)

Based on 16 parent reviews

Potentially great movie to watch with kids Fails due to crude actor!

Not bad movie, pity about language, what's the story.

Left home alone one evening while his widowed mother ( Jennifer Garner ) goes out on a date, Young Adam (Walker Scobell) discovers a wounded man on his property at the start of THE ADAM PROJECT. The man ( Ryan Reynolds ) turns out to be an older version of himself, and he eventually explains that he has traveled back in time to discover how his wife ( Zoe Saldana ) was killed, and maybe save her. Time travel is possible thanks to technology initially created by Adam's dad ( Mark Ruffalo ) but put to nefarious use by his business partner, Maya Sorian ( Catherine Keener ). Big Adam has been followed back in time by Sorian and her robot-like soldiers, putting his life -- and that of his younger self -- in jeopardy.

Is It Any Good?

The real surprise in this fun, layered, time-traveling action mystery is the tenderness with which family relationships and sentiments are handled. The Adam Project gives its characters the opportunity to go back in time to right misdirected relationships and fix missed chances to fully express their feelings for each other. While the concept of time travel is nothing new (Young Adam's blue puffy vest could be a direct nod to Back to the Future's Marty McFly), the way it's handled here as a device for a more intimate character study is compelling. An especially moving scene is when Big Adam encounters his mom in a bar and helps her understand her son's feelings, as well as her own.

The action scenes and visual effects are of course well done (though the de-aging of Keener is a little creepy), and they're set to classic rock and choreographed with character-revealing dialogues. A memorable example is when Young Adam repeats Big Adam's condescending tough-guy advice back to him when the latter is in a vulnerable position. The actors here are cast to type: Reynolds as a wise-cracking reluctant hero, Garner as a mom, Saldana as a brave action hero, and Ruffalo as a scruffy sage. The discovery is Walker Scobell as Young Adam. He manages to match Reynolds' sarcasm, smarts, and knowing looks, rather than the other way around, acting that was necessary to make their oneness as versions of the same character believable. While the setting doesn't play a huge role, the lush forest right outside Adam's house is magical and vaguely reminiscent of scenes from E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial .

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the two versions of Adam in The Adam Project . How are they alike and different? What do they learn from each other? What would you say to a younger version of yourself, given the chance?

What is the world of 2050 like, judging by the descriptions given by characters who have traveled back to 2022? What do you envision the future to look like?

How does this film weave action, drama, fantasy, and comedy together? What genre would you call the movie, if you had to pick just one?

Movie Details

On DVD or streaming : March 11, 2022
Cast : Ryan Reynolds , Walker Scobell , Mark Ruffalo
Director : Shawn Levy
Studio : Netflix
Genre : Fantasy
Topics : STEM , Magic and Fantasy , Adventures
Run time : 106 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : violence/action, language and suggestive references
Award : Common Sense Selection
Last updated : February 17, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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The Adam Project Reviews

“The Adam Project” latches onto viewers and takes them on an exhilarating joyride.

Full Review | Oct 31, 2023

The Adam Project is not a perfect film, but it’s exactly the kind of film we need right now: a highly enjoyable adventure with the right dose of nostalgia and plenty of heart.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 1, 2023

What an INCREDIBLE, thrilling Adventure that took me back to early 80’s Sci-fi features that contains a charm that is irresistible. + The heart of it all will leave you an emotional wreck.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

The Adam Project will undoubtedly be a big hit for Shawn Levy, Ryan Reynolds, and Netflix. The film goes beyond its sci-fi time travel tropes and delivers some wonderful character-rich performances.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Jan 4, 2023

The Adam Project was very entertaining ride for the whole family. Has great character roles from Ryan Reynolds, Mark Ruffulo and new comer Walker Scobell they all have great chemistry that even in times of this being very silly it never goes off the rails

Full Review | Original Score: 8.5/10 | Dec 26, 2022

Free Guy director Shawn Levy reteams with star Ryan Reynolds for a half-hearted attempt to recapture the heyday of Amblin Entertainment, which results in one of the laziest sci-fi blockbusters in quite some time.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Dec 10, 2022

That’s probably all the audience should expect from a picture like this, one released direct-to-streaming for delivery of perfunctory content meant to bring eyes to the service, but not providing the level of quality one can often find at the cineplex.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 22, 2022

A glossy amalgamation of much better action-adventure fare.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 6, 2022

Above all else, it may be the only time you'll get to see a bullet wound be the means by which to make a fart joke in a movie...so at least it's got that going for it?

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 23, 2022

Never have I heard such hyperactive dialogue so painfully lacking in wit that I often struggled to even follow the basic plot.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/10 | Jul 26, 2022

It's pleasures are frontloaded so by the time it reaches its generically explosive plot hole riddled conclusion, interest has long since waned.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Jun 14, 2022

A science fiction adventure with lots of humor. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | May 16, 2022

Well put together and functional, it feels as though we are in unexplored territory. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 13, 2022

The goal here is to make you feel good about the magic that movies can grab a hold of, even if only temporarily--and how simple father-son pathos can cue the waterworks when performed well.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | May 10, 2022

At most, the screen equivalent of a really good Big Mac, and as much as you might like McDonalds, theres a reason those restaurants dont get Michelin stars.

Full Review | Apr 25, 2022

When Levy tries to get serious and introspective, as little Adam forces Big Adam to confront the psychological pain of losing his father, the movie discovers a new kind of cinematic time travel by making the film slow to a crawl.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 17, 2022

I really enjoyed it.

Full Review | Apr 12, 2022

Whats really disappointing is that there was obviously a better movie somewhere in there, but dumb action sequences outmuscle the more successful parts of the story.

Full Review | Apr 5, 2022

Project isn’t brimming with originality, but it knows how to fit familiar parts together in an entertaining way.

Full Review | Apr 1, 2022

The delightful scenes between both older and younger Adam are the films crux, providing a pleasant viewing experience for families--Reynolds is a natural when comedy is involved, and viewing him yet again in a sci-fi role is a treat.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 31, 2022

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‘The Adam Project’ Review: Ryan Reynolds Meets His 12-Year-Old Self in Shawn Levy’s Back-to-the-Future Action Confection

Their first collaboration after "Free Guy" is just a clever derivative trifle, but it shows why this star and director bring out the best in each other.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

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Somewhere along the line, Ryan Reynolds became the most playful actor we have. That might sound like faint praise; some would call him silly or lightweight or even, in his aggro irreverance, a touch smarmy. But genuine fast-break insolence is a quality that’s missing from the lumbering cheek of most of our paint-by-numbers blockbusters. Reynolds has a knack for playing characters who are nonchalantly macho but with an amusing touch of cowardice, a contradiction he invests with a kind of innocence. He’s got a Nervous Nellie side that humanizes him, especially when it takes the form of a nerd’s verbal machine-gun fire. In his way, he’s a new screen type: the brainy goof in a pinup’s body.

Last summer, in the diabolically clever video-game head trip “Free Guy,” Reynolds finally got to be in a movie where the jittery digital-age fantasy elements skittered by every bit as quickly as his rapid-patter mind. The film was as jammed with media as Spielberg’s “Ready Player One,” but more relaxed about its own insanity, and that seemed to liberate Reynolds; it was the most accomplished work he’d done since “Deadpool.” The director Shawn Levy , who made the “Night at the Museum” films, also hit a new peak — of life-is-a-screen-and-we-just-live-in-it imaginative verve. “Free Guy” was the rare sleeper hit of the pandemic era, and Reynolds and Levy emerged from it as a kind of team. These two click rhythmically and chemically. They bring something out in each other.

“ The Adam Project ” is their follow-up collaboration (both are executive producers of it), but it’s the Netflix version: a notch more anonymous, packed with fantasy and action as if it were being financed by the yard. At its best, though, you feel the exuberance of the Reynolds/Levy connection. The movie is a total trifle, but it’s often a diverting one — a wide-eyed sci-fi adventure with a screwball buoyancy.

Popular on Variety

Reynolds, in a beard that makes him look like a smirky G.I. Joe, plays Adam Reed, a time-tripping renegade fighter pilot from the year 2050 who travels back to 2022, where he hooks up with his 12-year-old self: a small-for-his-age blond kid, played by the terrific Walker Scobell, who makes up for his stature — and for just about everything else — with the size of his brain and the sharpness of his mouth. He’s a sweet kid, yet so cuttingly observant that he can talk himself into getting punched by the school bully. Adam razzes his mother, Ellie ( Jennifer Garner ), and since they’re both still coping with the death of his father in a car accident a year-and-a-half before, she experiences the effrontery as an attack.

Adam, in cynical movie terms, needs a buddy who can be a father figure. And what buddy could be more ideal for him than his own self, 30 years later? Reynolds’ Adam, who drops into a woods lit with ’70s Spielbergian blue light and skulks around bleeding from a bullet wound, talks as much smack as 12-year-old Adam does. He’s just what the kid need and deserves. But there are, in addition, a whole lotta back-to-the-future logistical backflips going on. The premise of “The Adam Project” is that time travel exists, and that adult Adam has traveled back to the wrong year — he really wanted to land in 2018, so that he could stop Maya Sorian (Catherine Keener), his diabolical flight commander, from returning to that same year and causing all kinds of dastardly things to happen, starting with the death of Adam’s wife, Laura (Zoe Saldaña).

“The Adam Project” is the kind of time-travel movie that spins your head until it turns your head to mush. It’s the sort of film in which Catherine Keener, facing off against her de-aged self, warns of “the potential for catastrophic changes to the time stream,” and all you can think is: I liked time better before it became the time stream. These films bend over backwards to chase the tail of their own “logic” (if you go back in time and meet your younger self, how will that mess with the cosmos? And if, in fact, you change anything , how will that mess with the cosmos?), but the questions are inevitably more incisive than the answers. Because the simple eternal truth is that the more you think about time travel the way this movie asks you to, the less sense it makes.

But “The Adam Project” isn’t heavy-duty sci-fi. It’s a glossy bauble of a caper that uses time travel as a frame for action that’s staged as effusively as the demolition in a Road Runner cartoon. For a few scenes, the movie is “Top Gun” in the northwest. Then it’s a “Star Wars” ninja video game with adult Adam using a double-sided industrial light saber to fend off an army of metal droids that he reduces, with each saber slash, to orange-pink psychedelic powder. And once the characters return to the pivotal year of 2018, it becomes an absent-daddy bonding movie (more Spielberg!) with Adam’s late physicist father, played as a scruffy volatile professor by Mark Ruffalo , alive and well, which he needs to be because he’s the scientist who invented time travel. To save the future, Adam wants to eliminate that miraculous ability from the earth. But if he does, how will he meet Saldaña’s perky Laura?

The action scenes are choreographed to classic rock — “Gimme Some Lovin’,” “Foreplay/Long Time” by Boston, Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times, Bad Times.” The real time travel in this movie is back to the days when even action could be a boisterous form of feel-good entertainment. “The Adam Project” is the definition of trivial, and on the small screen it overstays its welcome by about 15 minutes, but it’s a brashly likable piece of antic high-powered fluff. Here’s my own leap into the future: As a team, Ryan Reynolds and Shawn Levy are going to make much better movies than this one, but you can feel the tastiness of their combo even in a kinetic marshmallow like “The Adam Project.” They’re not trying to fake fun.

Reviewed online, March 8, 2022. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 106 MIN.

Production: A Netflix release of a Skydance Entertainment, Maximum Effort, 21 Laps production. Producers: David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, Shawn Levy, Ryan Reynolds. Executive producers: Mary McLaglen, Josh McLaglen, Dan Levine, Dan Cohen, George Dewey, Patrick Gooing, Jennifer Flackett, Mark Levin.
Crew: Director: Shawn Levy. Screenplay: Jonathan Tropper, T.S. Nowlin, Jennifer Flackett, Mark Levin. Camera: Tobias Schliessler. Editors: Dean Zimmerman, Jonathan Corn. Music: Rob Simonsen.
With: Ryan Reynolds, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Garner, Walker Scobell, Zoe Saldaña, Catherine Keener.

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Ryan reynolds in netflix’s ‘the adam project’: film review.

The star reteams with ‘Free Guy’ director Shawn Levy, playing a time traveler who returns to fix the world while reconnecting with his preteen self and late father.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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Ryan Reynolds as Big Adam and Walker Scobell as Young Adam in The Adam Project.

In Shawn Levy ’s Free Guy , Ryan Reynolds starred as a non-player videogame character who breaks free of his programming to score himself a life and make a difference to a joyless world. Reuniting with the director on The Adam Project , another high-concept, highly derivative clutch of ideas from mostly better movies, Reynolds again tries to escape his programming by juggling his usual glib shtick with off-brand sincerity. That’s as hard to buy as the film’s awkward mashup of time-travel mayhem with sudsy melodrama about a fractured family’s path to healing.

As Netflix has shown repeatedly with the non-prestige end of its original film output — for instance, Red Notice , also featuring Reynolds on smirking autopilot — subscribers will eat up these star-driven concoctions no matter how recycled the plotting, making the movies more or less review-proof. That no doubt will prove to be the case again with this orphaned Paramount project, originally conceived as a Tom Cruise vehicle.

Full credits

Distributor: Netflix Production companies: Skydance, Maximum Effort, 21 Laps Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Garner, Walker Scobell, Catherine Keener, Zoe Saldaña, Alex Mallari Jr., Braxton Bjerken, Kasra Wong Director: Shawn Levy Screenwriters: Jonathan Tropper, T.S. Nowlin, Jennifer Flackett, Mark Levin Producers: David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, Shawn Levy, Ryan Reynolds Executive producers: Mary McClagen, Josh McClagen, Dan Levine, Dan Cohen, George Dewey, Patrick Gooing, Jennifer Flackett, Mark Levin Director of photography: Tobias Schliessler Production designer: Claude Paré Costume designer: Jenny Eagan Music: Rob Simonsen Editors: Dean Zimmerman, Jonathan Corn Visual effects supervisor: Alessandro Ongaro Casting: Carmen Cuba

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The Adam Project review: Ryan Reynolds confronts his younger self in goofy time-loop adventure

A tale of two Adams, 30 years (and one tear in the space-time continuum) apart.

Ryan Reynolds and director Shawn Levy 's first pairing, 2021's Free Guy, turned out to be one of the best small surprises of a very weird year: a glossy sci-fi blockbuster with a tender little Ted Lasso heart. Their second, The Adam Project (on Netflix Friday) arrives a scant seven months later — thank pandemic math for that — in a somewhat messier state, though the through-lines aren't hard to find. Like Free Guy , Adam hangs a lot on Reynolds' rat-a-tat banter and a winky awareness of all the multiplex tropes it's tweaking, even as it drills down on the all-you-need-is-love message at its squishy center.

Unlike Guy , it's is also purposefully positioned as a family film, with a Spielbergian sense of wonder to cut through all the pew-pew noise. That's a lot of disparate pieces to bring together tonally, and some bits just don't fit. The movie-logic premise of it all, at least, is hard to argue with: Time travel exists, and Reynold's circa-2050 Adam Reed is somehow able to revisit his 12-year-old self (Walker Scobell) without immediately ripping a space-vortex wormhole in everything Stephen Hawking ever taught us (though Hawking does happen to be the name of his childhood dog).

Adult Adam's crash landing in 2022 is actually a miscalculation; he was aiming for 2018, into which his wife Laura ( Zoe Saldaña ), a fellow pilot, recently disappeared and has been presumed dead following a standard flight exercise. But he's also been injured in his escape by Maya Sorian ( Catherine Keener ), the mendacious CEO who seems to control all this technology, and by extension most of the apocalyptic world he lives in. So he needs Young Adam's healthy DNA to help him get behind the wheel again, though he could clearly do with less of the rest of him.

He's not the only one: Though Scobell is an appealing young actor, the script (credited to four writers) insists on making him the kind of precocious, relentlessly verbal tween that only exists on screen. And the bullies at school, accordingly, heed the call of his "punchable" face literally; even his infinitely patient mother ( Jennifer Garner ) finds him impossible. (Reynolds' Adam puts it more succinctly: "Don't you just want to hold him underwater till the bubbles stop?") That exasperation wanes as the movie goes on — his brattiness, of course, is just the defense mechanism of a lonely, undersized kid still grieving the recent death of his dad ( Mark Ruffalo ) — and emotional breakthroughs get their due.

The narrative moves beyond its bickering Adams when Saldaña and an amiable, rumpled Ruffalo come in, though you wish Levy trusted his story enough not to fill every spare moment with expensive needle drops and the kind of high-key banter that inevitably ends up sounding like borrowed Deadpool in the mouths of most actors who aren't Reynolds. There are other distractions, like the face de-aging effects no current film can seem to go without, and an oddly cast Keener, whose impassive villainy worked better in Get Out than it does here. The life lessons, too, are unabashedly Hallmark-y (Hug your mother! Especially if she looks like Garner). For all its earnest sentiment and questionable science, though, Adam barrels along on movie stars and charm, from futures past and back again. Grade: B -

The Adam Project Feels Like a Fake Movie

The Adam Project doesn’t feel like a real movie. It feels phony both from the outside — Ryan Reynolds traveling back in time to meet his 12-year-old self and do battle against futuristic soldiers could be something you’d see on a movie poster in a not-too-inventive showbiz satire — and from the inside, too. It’s an assemblage of ideas from other popular films that just hangs there with little cohesion. It’s like watching a movie that hasn’t been made yet.

And the strangest thing is that The Adam Project seems to know this. The great challenge with Reynolds has always been how to handle the fundamental insincerity of his presence. He has a way of making everything he says feel predetermined. That can actually lead to some interesting performances, and he’s at his best in roles that embrace this calculated quality: He made a great con artist/gambler in Mississippi Grind and a convincingly patronizing frat bro in Van Wilder . Last year’s Free Guy wasn’t exactly great, but he was kind of perfect as a NPC, a non-playable character, who attains sentience; that robotic aura of his made sense for someone who existed entirely inside a video game.

Shawn Levy, the director of Free Guy , is also the man behind The Adam Project , and the two films do share an almost psychotic, all-you-can-eat derivativeness. Reynolds plays Adam Reed, whom we first see piloting some kind of futuristic spaceship in the year 2050, while nursing a wound in his stomach, right before he makes a time jump to the year 2022. He lands in the woods outside the home that he lived in as a child with his widowed mother (Jennifer Garner). Twelve-year-old Adam (Walker Scobell) is scrawny and asthmatic, a wise-ass constantly picked on by bullies. But the boy quickly realizes that this wounded, buff, cynical soldier is his future adult self, and before we know it, the two of them are off on the next stage of Adam’s mysterious mission to undo the past.

It’s not actually that mysterious. The time-travel technology of the future was, we learn, invented by Adam’s late scientist father, Louis (Mark Ruffalo), in 2018, in a collaboration with wealthy businesswoman Maya Sorian (Catherine Keener). In 2050, Sorian has somehow used this technology to turn Earth into a hellhole. (We have to take the movie’s word for it — or rather Adam’s, when he notes that The Terminator would be “a good day” in the future. We don’t really see any such thing.) So the two Adams now have to jump back to 2018 and stop their father from turning time travel into a thing. I think. My brain shut off after a certain point.

It’s all quite silly, but at least the latter parts of the film allow us to spend some time with Ruffalo, who brings the kind of emotional openness and engagement that Reynolds refuses to. That is actually an interesting contrast between the two actors, and it could even be an interesting plot point in some future version of this movie that was put together with something resembling care. (Sadly, the great Keener is not as lucky as Ruffalo. She’s thoroughly wasted. In fact, she’s worse than wasted. In some later scenes that present us with an awkwardly de-aged version of her, Keener is actually turned, through the magic of modern motion picture visual-effects technology, into a bad actress.)

Regarding the movie’s premise: You probably have a lot of questions at this point. I assure you that The Adam Project does not answer any of them. It’s a film designed to thumb its nose at geeks who might wonder just what exactly this movie’s conception of time travel entails, but it also isn’t going to satisfy those of us who think films already spend too much time trying to make all their fake science work. This isn’t exactly Claire Denis’s High Life or Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris . Shawn Levy isn’t going to counter nerdy obsessives with fuck-you formalism.

No, Levy simply wants to entertain, which is certainly a noble goal. He has paced the film at such breakneck speed that he presumably hopes we’ll be having too much fun to wonder how any of this works. But it’s not just the dorky sci-fi stuff that goes out the window. The emotional logic is discarded as well. When the two Adams meet, the older Adam assures us that the younger Adam is annoying as hell. And yet, the exact opposite seems to be true; the kid seems like a pretty average kid, while grown-up Adam is the irritating smart-ass. Is this intentional? Who knows? Who cares? The movie has lots of ideas, but it doesn’t follow through on any of them. Over and over, it just moves onto the next disjointed plot point. Derivativeness in and of itself isn’t always a problem. Even corporate cynicism isn’t necessarily a problem. But when it’s all handled this shoddily, what comes through is crass, careless opportunism.

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The Adam Project Review

11 Mar 2022

The Adam Project

After working together on last year’s Truman Show -esque action-comedy Free Guy , director Shawn Levy and star Ryan Reynolds are back in the saddle, this time on an original sci-fi romp with a timey-wimey twist. Cinematic nostalgia is still the order of the day as we collectively continue to seek reminders of better times, and Levy’s movie — based on a T.S. Nowlin spec script from 2012 — duly obliges, offering a throwback slice of escapism with plenty of heart.

Adam Reed (Ryan Reynolds) is a time-travelling pilot on a mission to find his wife Laura (a typically strong Zoe Saldana ), who went missing under mysterious circumstances. Pursued by the villainous Sorian ( Catherine Keener ) — a vacuous big bad who exists almost solely to send baddies to their lightsabering doom — Adam crash-lands in the present day, where he makes an unlikely friend in his younger self (Walker Scobell). Merciless Reynoldsian ribbing, several opened cans of whoop-ass and some earnest soul-searching ensue as the two Adams search for Laura, fend off Sorian, and find themselves travelling back in time to meet their late father ( Mark Ruffalo , giving 13 Going On 30 fans the reunion with an excellent Jennifer Garner they’ve desired), who turns out to be the inventor of time travel.

Levy’s cinematic eye for otherwise innocuous details really leaves a lasting impression.

Working in the ’80s Amblin tradition (echoes of Back To The Future and E.T. are rarely far away), Levy uses the fantastical conceit of The Adam Project to offer a film that’s constantly searching for moments of emotional intimacy within the broader blockbuster framework. The genre’s bread-and-butter tropes are all present and correct here — gigantic spaceships, pew-pews, vrooshes and high-stakes showdowns — though their application mostly serves as a reminder of a dozen other films that made better use of them. What plays to the director’s strengths are the small, personal moments: an overdue hug, a whispered apology or a simple game of catch. Levy’s cinematic eye for otherwise innocuous details really leaves a lasting impression.

The real aces up Levy’s sleeve here are newcomer Walker Scobell and Ryan Reynolds. 13-year-old Scobell — a Deadpool megafan — uncannily nails Reynolds’ cadence and sardonic wit as a young Adam, commanding the lion’s share of the film’s big laughs. Opposite him, Reynolds — galvanised by a script that resonated with his own emotional response to losing his father in 2020 — digs deep to portray a man whose biting humour is used to hide a storm of emotions within. It’s arguably his best performance since 2010’s Buried (one scene with Garner, who plays Adam’s mum, is a career best). When the film gives the two Adams space to work through their grief together, allowing Scobell and Reynolds to really explore the way loss shapes and reshapes us over the course of our lives, it’s beautiful.

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Netflix’s shallow time-travel yarn The Adam Project lets Ryan Reynolds do his thing

It’s an amiable take on Spielbergian adventure, with a strong sentimental side

Zoe Saldana and Ryan Reynolds stand side by side outdoors in The Adam Project, with Zoe pointing a giant-ass glowing futuristic gun at the camera

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The idea that the world is speeding up is, for the most part, a lie people tell themselves to deny that they’re getting older. Even onscreen, a perceived acceleration may be an illusion: Yes, an average 21st-century film has more and quicker edits than one made before 1980, thanks to developments in technology and the rise of the “MTV style.” But the back-and-forth in a 21st-century Marvel movie is no faster than that of a 1940s screwball comedy. (It might be slower, actually.) So while Netflix’s science fiction comedy The Adam Project may feel like an Amblin Entertainment film played at 1.5 speed for viewers who grew up with those movies, the reasons for that go beyond the cruel distortions of time.

One major factor behind the film’s rat-a-tat energy is star Ryan Reynolds: He’s Deadpool, for God’s sake. Rapid-fire sarcasm is a cornerstone of his brand. Writer-director Shawn Levy has already collaborated with Reynolds (on 2021’s Free Guy ) and shot eight episodes of Stranger Things , so combining the two is a logical next step. When Levy and Reynolds — both co-producers on the film — play to their strengths, The Adam Project is zippy, agreeable sci-fi fun that produces a few good chuckles. But in moments where undiluted sweetness is required, the film’s glib writing stands out in a negative way.

The film opens in 2050, just outside Earth’s orbit, where Adam (Reynolds) — a classic “hotshot pilot who plays by his own rules” type — is preparing to steal a time-traveling jet. Adam is desperate to go back to 2018, for reasons that quickly become clear. But he accidentally crash-lands in 2022, with a bullet in his side and a bio-linked ship that won’t start until his injury heals. (The movie is full of “Okay, I guess” contrivances of this type.) So he breaks into the backyard of his 12-year-old self, a smaller, more asthmatic, but equally smart-mouthed version of Adam (Walker Scobell).

Ryan Reynolds faces off against a Twiki-looking robot in The Adam Project

Adult Adam needs young Adam’s DNA to start his ship. Young Adam needs adult Adam to help him work through some issues related to the recent death of their father Louis (Mark Ruffalo), a brilliant but neglectful physicist. So the two set out on a rollicking adventure through space (well, just across town) and time (but only, like, five years) to stop the Louis of 2018 from achieving the scientific breakthroughs that will make time travel a reality. Sidelines with Zoe Saldaña as adult Adam’s courageous wife Laura and Jennifer Garner as both Adams’ predictably put-upon mom Ellie imply that women serve as tempering influences for Adam at both ages. But for the most part, this story is more about Adam’s relationship with his dad — and himself.

Reynolds and Scobell have a winning chemistry as the two Adams, coordinating their body language and bouncing playful insults off each other throughout the film. (A moment where the two giggle as Reynolds makes his bullet wound “fart” is surprisingly sweet.) The idea of a child meeting their adult self or an adult traveling back in time to right the wrongs of their childhood have both been explored in other movies — including 13 Going on 30, another film that cast Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo as a couple. The Adam Project ’s four-person writing team is hyper-aware of that fact, just as they’re clearly aware that Adam fights with a weapon that looks a lot like a lightsaber, against a villain whose scheme to create a Terminator future resembles Biff Tanner’s plan in Back to the Future Part II.

Levy handles these references in a lighter way than, say, Ready Player One , however. The Adam Project ’s purpose seems to be more to make a movie in the spirit of an ’80s family-friendly sci-fi adventure than to leech off the goodwill audiences have toward pre-existing films. That being said, Levy does stage some action in a forest straight out of E.T. , and young Adam wears a puffy Marty McFly vest throughout the film. But again, these winks are wielded with the intention of creating the same type of wonder in today’s kids as Spielberg’s films did 40 years ago, while still nodding to the ‘80s-kid parents sitting next to them on the couch. And there are moments specifically designed to thrill viewers around young Adam’s age, like the scene where he takes down a gaggle of robotic bad guys with drones controlled by his VR helmet. If this was 1989, it would have been a Nintendo Power Glove.

Perhaps it goes without saying that The Adam Project glides over the paradoxes of time travel, acknowledging that the two Adams hanging out should unravel the space-time continuum, but never really explaining why it doesn’t. ( Primer this is not.) That’s forgivable, given that the film moves too quickly, and too cheerfully, to dwell on any scientific conundrums.

Young Adam and Big Adam (Ryan Reynolds) navigate a dark blue forest on a glowing flying platform in The Adam Project

But it is indicative of how The Adam Project loses its grip when the stakes become a little higher. Catherine Keener is oddly cast as the film’s Big Bad, for example, playing her character neither as an over-the-top supervillain nor as a credible threat. (Netflix also trots out some of that Irishman technology to put Keener’s face on a body double in scenes where she interacts with her younger self.) And a romantic interlude between Garner and Ruffalo is a little too quippy for its own good.

One emotional note The Adam Project hits perfectly is dead-dad schmaltz — again, unsurprising, given the palette of influences Levy is working with here. Family storylines are a hallmark of the ’80s kids’ adventure movies being lovingly re-created in The Adam Project , and it’s worth noting that the film does slow down, both in terms of pacing and dialogue, for the sentimental scenes between father and son(s). When dealing with more adult emotions — say, corporate greed or romantic love — the film can’t help but undercut them with defensive sarcasm. But its exploration of the wounds of childhood comes from a more earnest place.

The years go faster as we grow older, but the hurts we suffered as children stay frozen until we address them. The form of therapy presented in The Adam Project is obviously impossible, and more than a little simplistic. But in a film that rockets out of the gate with such breakneck speed, it’s unexpectedly affecting when it gets down to the business of healing Adam’s inner child — or outer child, as the case may be. So while The Adam Project may make E.T. seem sluggish, its heart is in the same vulnerable place.

The Adam Project debuts on Netflix on March 11.

Cast & crew
User reviews

The Adam Project

After accidentally crash-landing in 2022, time-traveling fighter pilot Adam Reed teams up with his 12-year-old self for a mission to save the future. After accidentally crash-landing in 2022, time-traveling fighter pilot Adam Reed teams up with his 12-year-old self for a mission to save the future. After accidentally crash-landing in 2022, time-traveling fighter pilot Adam Reed teams up with his 12-year-old self for a mission to save the future.

Jonathan Tropper
T.S. Nowlin
Jennifer Flackett
Ryan Reynolds
Walker Scobell
Mark Ruffalo
1.2K User reviews
221 Critic reviews
55 Metascore
1 win & 13 nominations

(as Zoe Saldaña)

Maya Sorian

Young Sorian Body Double

Paul the Bartender

8-year-old Adam

(uncredited)

University Student

Time Soldier
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Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

Trivia When Louis Reed ( Mark Ruffalo ) says that he 'gets' a student's T-shirt during a lecture, the shirt has a picture of Nicolas Cage , but the name John Travolta under it. This is a reference to the John Woo film Face/Off (1997) in which the two actors played each other's characters. Cage and Ruffalo also had collaborated on Woo's Windtalkers (2002) .
Goofs At 1:27:09 Louis mentions the gun fires rounds that contain a magnetic steel core; so, the weapon itself should have been pulled towards the reactor at the start of the breach, considering it pulls all things magnetic towards it. This would include its contents.

Big Adam : Laura, this is... me.

Young Adam : Hi.

Laura : Parallel contact, babe?

Big Adam : Well, you know, you've always said that you wished you'd met me earlier. Here I am.

Connections Featured in MsMojo: Top 10 Memorable Kisses in Netflix Original Movies (2022)
Soundtracks Gimme Some Lovin Written by Spencer Davis , Muff Winwood (as Mervyn Winwood), Steve Winwood (as Stephen Lawrence Winwood) Performed by The Spencer Davis Group Courtesy of Island Records Ltd./Capitol Records under license from Universal Music Enterprises

User reviews 1.2K

Mar 11, 2022
How long is The Adam Project? Powered by Alexa
March 11, 2022 (United States)
United States
Official Netflix
Our Name Is Adam
British Columbia, Canada
21 Laps Entertainment
Maximum Effort
Skydance Media
See more company credits at IMDbPro
$116,000,000 (estimated)

Technical specs

Runtime 1 hour 46 minutes
Dolby Atmos
Dolby Digital

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DVD & Streaming

The Adam Project

Action/Adventure , Comedy , Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Content Caution

In Theaters

March 9, 2022
Ryan Reynolds as Big Adam Reed; Walker Scobell as Young Adam Reed; Mark Ruffalo as Louis Reed; Jennifer Garner as Ellie Reed; Zoe Saldaña as Laura; Catherine Keener as Big Maya Sorian; Lucie Guest as Young Maya Sorian; Alex Mallari Jr. as Christos; Braxton Bjerken as Ray; Kasra Wong as Chuck; Donald Sales as Paul the Bartender; Esther Ming Li as Sophie; Isaiah Haegert as 8-year-old Adam Reed; Ben Wilkinson as Derek; Milo Shandel as Professor

Home Release Date

Distributor, movie review.

In 2022, Adam Reed is a 12-year-old, and he is also a 40-year-old.

Yeah, time travel exists. You just don’t know it yet.

You see, in the future, Adam Reed and his wife, Laura, are pilots. In fact, Laura’s the best pilot in the flight program, so when Adam is told that her spaceship broke up on reentry after a mission to 2018, he doesn’t believe it. Instead, from everything he’s gathered, all the facts seem to show that she was murdered.

So, Adam breaks protocol, stealing his government-issued spaceship in order to travel through a wormhole to find out what really happened to her in 2018. Only, the jump from 2050 to 2018 doesn’t go exactly as planned, and he crash-lands in 2022. Quickly losing options and needing a place to hunker down, he turns to the only person he can trust: himself … back when he was 12.

Positive Elements

As Big Adam meets with his Young Adam self, he scolds and corrects him on the way he treats his mother, Ellie. Big Adam has lived the life Young Adam’s actions inevitably lead to, and he tries to provide guidance on how to avoid the mistakes he’s made along the way—and sometimes, it’s painful. For instance, after Young Adam makes a mocking comment about Ellie, Big Adam tells him, “You know, 30 years, you still get sick to your stomach every time you remember how you treated her now.”

And the truth is that Young Adam is often sarcastic and mean-spirited, often using his cruel humor as a way to shield the pain he feels over the recent and sudden death of his father, Louis. That’s why it’s especially heart-warming to see Big Adam bump into their mother in a bar and offer her praise and remind her how much her son loves her, telling her that “boys always come back for their mamas” and that he has the best mom.

Big Adam also tells his mother that she should tell Young Adam that she’s grieving over Louis’ death, too, explaining that “the problem with acting like you have it all together is he believes it,” and he needs to know that she doesn’t. It’s a lovely reminder that parents don’t always need to act like everything is OK in order to be a good parent.

But it’s not just their mom that Big Adam needs to reconnect with. Young Adam provides his own wisdom to restore Big Adam’s relationship with the living 2018 version of their father. Over the decades, Big Adam has buried his grief over the loss of their father in a pit of anger. Instead of mourning, he blames Louis for being a bad father, citing examples of how he wasn’t there for them when they needed him. But Young Adam, whose loss is still relatively fresh, corrects Big Adam, showing him how he’s misremembered their memories of their dad. “It’s easier to be angry than to be sad,” he wisely notes.

And this relationship is fleshed out in a beautiful scene that brings tears to the eyes. Big Adam offers to inform his father in 2018 about his impending death, but Louis refuses, saying that Big Adam and Young Adam are his future, and he’s so lucky to have gotten to see it. He then restores his relationship with Big Adam, directly telling him to stop carrying around this pain and that he’s loved him since the moment he was born—“and that will never change.”

Spiritual Elements

Louis makes a reference to fate.

Sexual Content

Big Adam and Laura passionately kiss when they find one another, and we hear some moans. Big Adam makes a joke about male genitals.

Young Adam makes a crude joke about going to the therapist’s office to say where the “bad man” touched him. Young Adam asks Big Adam if he will have sex in college.

Louis tells Big Adam that his tight jacket makes him look like a “condom with buttons.” Louis and Ellie share a kiss.

Violent Content

Big Adam is shot at in his spaceship, and we see blood covering his hand from a bullet wound to his side. He shows the wound to Young Adam. Big Adam threatens Ray by pinning him against a wall and explaining the violence he will put Ray through if he hurts Young Adam again.

Young Adam is punched by Ray on multiple occasions, twice causing his nose to bleed. It is mentioned that Young Adam has been suspended three times for fighting. Big Adam tells Young Adam to punch his bully, Ray, in the crotch. Elsewhere, he explains that a woman named Maya Sorian “has the world by the balls” in the future.

Big Adam and Laura fight off a large group of men in black, stormtrooper-like garb, killing many. However, because “dying outside your fixed time is messy,” they evaporate into sparkling mist upon death. Throughout these fights, people are punched, stabbed, electrocuted, shot at and exploded. A random vehicle is destroyed by a missile.

Big Adam makes a joke about drowning his younger self. He also punches Louis, and Louis punches him back, causing the latter to believe he broke his hand. Ellie mentions that Louis died in a car crash. In another, unrelated, moment, Louis slams his car into another.

[ Spoiler Warning ] Big Adam, Louis and Young Adam fight Big Maya, Young Maya and her henchman, Christos. In the fight against Christos, he beats them all down before being killed by a flying piece of debris. Big Maya accidentally shoots Young Maya, and both of them die as a result. Additionally, Laura is shot and killed by a spaceship.

Crude or Profane Language

God’s name is misused nearly 45 times, and a handful of those uses are paired with “d–n.” Jesus’ name is used inappropriately six times. The f-word is used once, and it is mouthed or cut-off on a couple other occasions. We hear about 15 uses of the s-word.

“H—” is used eight times and “a–” more than 15 times. “B–ch,” “d–n,” “p-ss” and “crap” are also used on occasion.

Additionally, “moron,” “idiot” and “turd-burper” are used to insult others. Big Adam says Young Adam has a “very punchable face.”

Drug and Alcohol Content

A bartender pours Ellie a glass of wine, and Big Adam is seen drinking alcohol. Big Adam is seen with a beer, and Young Adam attempts to drink it. Adult Sorian pours Young Sorian what appears to be a glass of alcohol.

Other Negative Elements

Big Adam says his wound makes flatulating noises when he coughs, and he demonstrates this on a couple of occasions. Young Adam is often rude to his mother, and he is rude to her date. After Big Adam threatens Ray, Ray wets himself.

The Adam Project provides yet another story about time travel, but it’s not too focused on time travel itself.

Yes, the characters are focused on fixing the future, but the real story is found in both of the Adams’ relationships with their parents. Ever since the untimely death of his father, Young Adam has been in mourning, and he deals with his pain by taking it out on his mother, who is desperately trying to keep up the façade for her son that everything’s OK.

This contrasts with Big Adam from 32 years in the future, who has come to realize just how much pain he put his mother through when he was Young Adam’s age. However, he’s long past mourning for his father. Instead, Big Adam is angry with him for how much time he spent away from home working on a magnetic particle accelerator called The Adam Project.

Through their mission to change time, Young Adam and Big Adam learn from each other. Though both are technically the same person, their individual experiences and memories help to fix the flaws in one another. And that’s where the movie is at its best, providing tear-jerking moments of redemption and reconciliation in between the intense fight scenes and quick one-liners.

The Adam Project stars Ryan Reynolds and is made by the same director, Shawn Levy, who made 2021’s Free Guy . Those who’ve seen that movie will likely notice the parallels in style between the two films—a combination of somber relationships and heartfelt conversations mixed with the typical humor Reynolds brings to the screen. And where Free Guy was a bit more humor than emotion, The Adam Project ends up being more emotion than humor. And that’s not a bad thing, as much of the emotional story in The Adam Project is based in growing into better people and resolving broken relationships.

But just as in Free Guy , that doesn’t mean The Adam Project is free from content concerns. Parents will want to know that the movie is littered with swear words, including 50 misuses of God’s name. Sexual references pervade many of the jokes, and many people die in large puffs of fairy dust (as “dying outside your fixed time is messy”). But through the weeds of this objectionable content is a story revolving around family reconciliation.

Kennedy Unthank

Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”

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After achieving success with last year's Free Guy , director Shawn Levy and star Ryan Reynolds collaborated again on Netflix's new sci-fi movie, The Adam Project . The two films are cut from a similar cloth, seemingly modeled after original, high-concept genre films prevalent in the 1980s ( Back to the Future and E.T. were cited as Adam Project influences). Free Guy was a pleasant surprise, earning praise from critics and audiences, raising expectations for the duo's next outing. Fortunately, this latest work delivers. The Adam Project is a charming and fun sci-fi throwback, fueled by a strong script and one of Reynolds' best performances.

Reynolds stars in The Adam Project as Adam Reed, a fighter pilot who time travels from the year 2050 and finds himself in the present day. There, he encounters his younger self (Walker Scobell), a 12-year-old kid grieving the death of his father, Louis (Mark Ruffalo) and making life even more difficult for his mourning mother, Ellie (Jennifer Garner). On a desperate mission to save the future, the older Adam enlists the help of his younger self to thwart Maya Sorian's (Kathleen Turner) plans.

Related: Netflix: Every Movie & TV Show Releasing In March 2022

The Adam Project mercifully doesn't get bogged down in time travel mechanics, wasting little time to get the two Adams together on their journey. The rules the film follows will largely be familiar to anyone who's seen similar titles The Adam Project draws inspiration from. Big Adam and Young Adam's dynamic is a greater focus in the script and their relationship with their parents is the movie's emotional core. Young Adam is a nuisance for Ellie, treating her poorly as she tries to keep her head above water. In contrast, Big Adam harbors strong animosity towards Louis. Conversations between the two Adams help them see things from a different perspective, fueling poignant and effective arcs. The sci-fi elements are an entertaining backdrop for a story that's about something much more, allowing The Adam Project to pull at the heartstrings.

Reynolds is reliably embodying an onscreen persona audiences are familiar with, though he is given moments of emotional sincerity to help flesh the character out. In particular, his interactions with Ruffalo and Zoe Saldana (playing Big Adam's wife, Laura) are quite moving, efficiently conveying pertinent information about the characters' relationships to get audiences invested. Reynolds also has excellent chemistry with Scobell, a perfect choice to play a smart-mouthed, younger version of his character. The two play off of each other very well — whether the scene calls for dramatic beats or comedy (the script has some amusing meta jokes about Reynolds). Turner is oddly the weakest link in the supporting cast, though that has more to do with the writing than her performance. Maya comes across as a two-dimensional, power-hungry villain who is just an obstacle for the Adams to overcome.

In terms of sci-fi action, The Adam Project doesn't reinvent the wheel (though there are some neat visuals and concepts). What makes it click is the strength of the characters and their personal stories, getting viewers invested in what's happening onscreen. While the Adams' personal journeys are great, there is a bit of a disconnect with the larger genre plot. Issues with the storytelling stem from telling rather than showing, especially as the terrible 2050s future Big Adam is trying to prevent is hardly shown. This negatively impacts the overall stakes a little bit, but isn't enough to weigh the film down. As a time travel story and a narrative about coming to terms with loss, The Adam Project works well with its fast pace and fun moments.

Levy is developing more movies with Reynolds, and it's safe to say the pair have a winning formula. The Adam Project should generate anticipation for whatever's next — be it Free Guy 2 or another original title. It harkens back to the classic Amblin films (including E.T. and the Back to the Future trilogy) and refreshingly isn't occupied with setting up a franchise. The Adam Project is the kind of high-profile film that likely would have found success at the box office, so it'll probably be a major hit for Netflix, giving the streamer an entertaining genre film with wide appeal. Those who enjoyed Levy and Reynolds' earlier works will find something to latch onto here.

Next: Watch The Adam Project Trailer

The Adam Project will be available to stream on Netflix on March 11, 2022. It runs 106 minutes and is rated PG-13 for violence/action, language, and suggestive references.

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Why 'The Adam Project' is a different kind of Ryan Reynolds project

Glen Weldon

Adam (Ryan Reynolds) and Young Adam (Walker Scobell) spend The Adam Project needling each other in a timestack. Netflix hide caption

Adam (Ryan Reynolds) and Young Adam (Walker Scobell) spend The Adam Project needling each other in a timestack.

The Adam Project is a light, clever, consummately PG-13 time-travel yarn about Adam (Ryan Reynolds), a pilot from the future, who travels back in time to prevent [REDACTED] from [REDACTED]ing — only to overshoot and wind up further in the past than planned. He's forced, for reasons that do not stand up to even the breeziest moment of reflection, to enlist the aid of his 12-year-old self (a legitimately funny, bracingly unprecocious Walker Scobell), thereby risking precisely the kind of time paradox that time-travel films cannot exist without risking.

Understand: In terms of moviemaking, no genre is redefined, here; no game gets changed. But the Netflix film is a relatively streamlined affair that moves at a gratifyingly brisk clip, wasting little time on backstory (or forwardstory, or alternatetimelinestory, for that matter). It manages to feel intimate, as it never leaves its setting in present-day Rainier, Washington, where Young Adam and his mother (Jennifer Garner!) share one of those gorgeous glass-walled houses nestled deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest that instantly transforms The Adam Project into a two-screen experience because you'll find yourself envy-surfing Zillow listings on your phone while you watch. Its cast is low-key terrific (Catherine Keener as the villain! Zoe Saldana as Adam's (very) close ally! Mark Ruffalo as Adam's dad!), and Reynolds and Scobell have an easy, unforced chemistry.

The film's fine — pretty good, actually. It's a very deliberate, if at times too-dutiful, homage to movies like Back to the Future , E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and, especially, Flight of the Navigator . Recommended, if you and your kids are looking for something to pass a gray March weekend afternoon.

But that's not what I've called you all here to discuss.

Let's talk Ryan Reynolds, you and me. And why The Adam Project feels like a small but significant — and possibly even hopeful — departure for him.

The Van Wilder effect

Look: Ryan Reynolds is a star. He's handsome, charismatic, fit and funny.

That magnetic star quality was evident as far back as his ABC sitcom, Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place , which debuted in 1998 and ran for four uneven seasons. On that show, he first locked into a persona that solidified around him in the 2002 film Van Wilder : The Popular Guy.

Y'all remember The Popular Guy from school. He was most likely a jock, possibly even a quarterback, but not the meat-headed kind that'd push you and your fellow nerds into lockers. No, he was the other kind of jock, the kind that wasn't looking for a career in the NFL, but only trying to gain some leadership experience and expand his extracurriculars.

The poster for National Lampoon's Van Wilder.

He carried himself with a confidence that he always worried might get mistaken for cockiness or swagger, so he took pains to keep in check. He cracked jokes, sure, but was always careful not to cut anyone down. Teachers loved him, students envied him. He was on a first-name basis with the custodian, with whom he talked car-racing; the lunch-servers snuck him extra tater tots. He went out of his way to ask to sign your yearbook at graduation, though you'd never talked to each other; when you read it later, you found that he'd left his number and invited you over to his house to swim at his pool over the summer. You knew that this was just a cruel joke that he and his friends were pulling, and you had just a scosh too much self-respect to ever actually make that phone call, yet it's true that the first time you read his note, you flushed with a stupid kind of excitement, imagining for one magical instant that you'd somehow fundamentally misread the previous four miserable years of high school and okay I now realize what I'm describing may have been something less than a universal experience and more of a Me Thing so uh let me get back on track and refocus on my original thesis.

Anyway: Ryan Reynolds, Popular Guy.

Again and again, he's chosen roles that highlight what comes easiest to him: Witty banter, mischievous humor, ingratiating charm. And he's carefully blended it with something that comes much less naturally: A pitched self-deprecation we can tell is a put-on, a carefully calculated gambit to win us over and convince us that he's just a regular guy.

He's not of course; he's Ryan Reynolds, movie star.

But there's a difference between choosing roles suited to your gifts and using your gifts to force roles into suiting yourself. The Ryan Reynolds who starred in The Hitman's Bodyguard and Red Notice and Green Lantern and R.I.P.D . and The Change-Up and 6 Underground and The Proposal and the Deadpool films is essentially the same guy, cracking jokes (or, in the case of the Deadpool films, making references ) and coasting on trickster charm.

Movie stars possess and exploit definable personae, to be sure. And certainly the actor has made efforts to stretch into more grounded territory before ( Buried, Woman in Gold ). But Reynolds' growing reliance on his repertoire of easily recognizable actorly tics has caused something to happen.

Too easily, and too often, his natural charm can spill over into off-putting smarm. His wittiness can read as mere glibness. That cockiness he's so careful to couch in performative, over-compensating self-deprecation can leak out and reveal itself to the world.

Last year's wildly overwrought Free Guy — Reynolds' previous pairing with The Adam Project director Shawn Levy — attempted to correct for all this by having him play a literal computer-generated cipher, a background video game character (just a regular guy, named: Guy) who gets upgraded and leveled up into a hero.

Ryan Reynolds as Big Adam and Jennifer Garner as Ellie in The Adam Project. Doane Gregory/Netflix hide caption

Ryan Reynolds as Big Adam and Jennifer Garner as Ellie in The Adam Project.

The Adam Project as acting project

Make no mistake: The Ryan Reynolds on display in The Adam Project is a familiar one. He's funny in the way he usually is, he's handsome and buff and charismatic as ever.

But the reason his performance works as well as it does is that he doesn't lunge at it, in the way we've come to expect him to. Consequently, the film feels slightly less like the Ryan Reynolds vehicle it was no doubt conceived to be. He hasn't disappeared into the role of time-traveling pilot Adam by any means, he's just doing a bit less obvious, outward work to embody it.

Perhaps it's a function that Adam is a smaller, less antic character than the ones Reynolds usually assays — he's more purpose-driven, sadder. Maybe it's that the script gives him more moments to breathe as an actor, as in an emotional scene he shares with Garner in a bar. It's a scene that risks coming off as sentimental, even syrupy, and that's probably why it lands so nimbly — because we can see Reynolds actually risking something in it.

It's also possible that the performance works because so much of it exists in the interplay between the two Adams — Reynolds and Scobell. In their many scenes together, Reynolds allows his familiar, keyed-up, outward persona to recede, in order to really listen to the other, younger actor, who doesn't so much steal focus as confidently accept it. (The kid's terrific, really.)

There's yet another Deadpool on the way, where Reynolds will find himself back on his home, Glib 'n' Smarmy TM turf. But The Adam Project , as pleasantly slight as it is, gestures toward a career trajectory the actor might enjoy in the years to come, after that jawline softens, that tight bod inevitably enDaddens itself, and his characteristic brio settles into the less effortful confidence of middle-age.

Review: Recycled ideas keep time travel flick ‘The Adam Project’ stuck in the past

A man and a boy in a forest at night look to the sky in the movie “The Adam Project.”

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What if you had a chance, as an adult, to revisit nagging issues with your parents? To reconcile with your younger self? Could it fix the past, or possibly even the future? This is the question undertaken rather literally in Shawn Levy’s clever time travel flick “The Adam Project.”

Levy and star Ryan Reynolds recently collaborated on “Free Guy,” and “The Adam Project,” written by Jonathan Tropper, T.S. Nowlin, Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin, makes similar use of Reynolds’ strength as a motor-mouthed leading man, a movie star who can simultaneously pull off comedy and action hero antics. “The Adam Project” is doubly quippy with the presence of Walker Scobell, who plays Young Adam to Reynold’s Big Adam, and matches him beat for beat when they meet in their respective timelines.

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As the film explains, “time travel exists, you just don’t know it yet,” asking the audience to suspend their disbelief and just go on this journey, a high-concept sci-fi action adventure that’s more about the symbolic repair of father-son relationships than it’s actually about time travel.

Big Adam comes from 2050, and he’s crash-landed in 2022, in his old backyard, where Young Adam, a twerpy tween who’s too smart by half, is trying to survive age 12. Big Adam was aiming for 2018, in search of his missing wife ( Zoe Saldaña ), but while he’s stopping over in 2022, he needs to fix his ship and heal from a gunshot wound, which offers him ample opportunity to hang with his younger self.

But it’s not all shared quirks and beating up bullies, as the fight that Adam’s chasing finds him, and suddenly he and Young Adam are on the run from a nefarious time-traveling tech mogul, Maya Sorian (Catherine Keener). The only way they can fix things is to go back one last time to find their father (Mark Ruffalo) and stop him from inventing time travel (again, just go with it).

“The Adam Project” is clearly inspired by films like “Back to the Future” and “The Terminator,” both directly referenced in the script. There are shades of more recent films too, such as Rian Johnson’s time-traveling-assassins drama “Looper,” while “Guardians of the Galaxy” comes to mind with the presence of Saldaña and a soundtrack stuffed with classic rock. Keener’s evil mogul is reminiscent of Kristen Wiig’s “Barb & Star” supervillain Sharon Gordon Fisherman. It feels like a retro adventure film, with a precocious kid and an exasperated adult playing “The Odd Couple” but with more fighting lasers and killer robots. Despite all the complexities of time travel on display here, the story feels neither innovative nor fresh.

What makes “The Adam Project” unique is its grounded aesthetic, the woodsy, organic landscape of the Pacific Northwest offering a backdrop for the super high-tech futuristic weapons of invisible planes and light saber bow staffs. There are some remarkable shots, especially in the first half of the film, juxtaposing the world of 2022 with the weapons of 2050, a contrast that mirrors the relationship between the Adams.

The first half is the more intriguing as older and younger tussle with each other and ask the tough questions, figuring out their mission together. But it all falls apart in a hackneyed third act, as the characters end up in a rote standoff, bargaining for a thingamajig to save the world. Plus, every scrap of nuance in the conversation about reconciling their past and present selves is jettisoned for aggressive sentimentality.

By the time a golden retriever puppy trots by for a game of catch, the film has shot right past emotional resonance and landed squarely in the realm of patronizing (unsuccessful) manipulation. This time travel movie is so rife with daddy issues, it’s a shock it wasn’t rolled out for Father’s Day. Unfortunately, what could have been something cerebral and stimulating ends up feeling like more disposable cinema.

Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

'The Adam Project'

Rated: PG-13, for violence/action, language and suggestive references Running time: 1 hour, 46 minutes Playing: Available March 11 on Netflix

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Ryan Reynolds and Walker Scobell in The Adam Project, a competent, polished film built for passive enjoyment.

The Adam Project review – Ryan Reynolds quips through thin Netflix sci-fi

The time travel adventure, from Free Guy director Shawn Levy, sees the actor recycling his witty, and often wearying, nice guy schtick

T he default tone of The Adam Project, Free Guy director Shawn Levy’s second sci-fi lite offering with Ryan Reynolds in as many years, is apiece with any other Reynolds film: quippy one-liners leavening a stressful situation. “Time travel exists, you just don’t know it yet,” we’re told in the opening shot, as an adult Adam Reed, another Reynolds-standard – a generically handsome, witty nice guy – steals a plane in the year 2050. Spitting comebacks even as he’s under fire in space – the graphics here (invisible ships!) seem decent for Netflix but still best suited for a small screen – Adam opens up a wormhole and crash-lands somewhere outside of Seattle in 2022.

Adult Adam, wounded and four years off from his target (the year 2018, to be later explained), blows up the life of his 12-year-old self (Walker Scobell), an asthmatic, caustic small fry reeling from the recent loss of his scientist father Louis (Mark Ruffalo). Scobell, with his reedy voice, soft brown eyes and flop of blonde hair, is endearing despite having to muddle through lines that feel generated from a Reynolds bot – chirpy, deeply annoying comebacks to his wearied mother Ellie (an underused Jennifer Garner) or a pair of archetypical school bullies.

Little Adam is an aerospace nerd with a strong grasp of Back to the Future references, which is the best way to view this film: a high-concept but thin homage to light-hearted sci-fi romps of the past. Packaged with a prestige Netflix film budget (and filmed on location in Vancouver), The Adam Project offers a buffet of family friendly hooks – slickly choreographed action sequences with invisible fighters of the future, booming score, the baseline emotional pull that is the passage of time – that make little sense if you think at all about it, which is not really the point. It’s spectacle coasting on the evergreen draw of time travel paced with beats of occasionally effective human emotion – grief, regret, self-loathing and acceptance in sometimes moving, very manageable amounts.

The script by Jonathan Tropper, Mark Levin, Jennifer Flackett and TS Nowlin attempts the necessary explanations of 1) how time travel is possible and, more pressingly, 2) what happens when past and future self meet, which isn’t well explained beyond “the prevailing wisdom is: not good,” though that’s ultimately not necessary to appreciate a caper such as this. The Adams –12-year-old Adam in his “fixed time” (one’s natural untampered timeline, so 2022) and 40-year-old Adam from 2050 – are tasked with finding Adam’s future/current wife Laura (Zoe Saldana), who was possibly sabotaged into a 2018 trap (this all gets mind-bendy very fast, better to turn brain onto cruise control). The mission quickly morphs to saving the future from the time-travel exploitation of Louis’s former patron, of-the-moment villainess tech CEO Maya Sorian (Catherine Keener), shot through with several time travel ethics questions used more as props than guideposts.

Enjoyment of The Adam Project will depend heavily on one’s tolerance for Reynolds’ well-established schtick, seeing as its doubled here into two schticks bouncing off each other. As in, nerdy Adam marvels at buff adult Adam’s muscles and is massively relieved that he one day gets laid. If the lilt of a tamer Deadpool or, of course, Free Guy are your thing, then The Adam Project will be more of your wheelhouse.

What does work, for me at least, are the sappy yet effective depictions of loss and the basic human ache for a little bit more control over the relentless march forward. Who hasn’t wished at some point to go back in time and savor a simple moment again, tell someone you loved them one more time, cheat death for an hour or two? The Adam Project benefits from the presence of Garner, always good as a mom with a deep well of compassion, and Ruffalo – no stranger to blockbuster action humor as the Avengers’ Hulk – who elevates the role of the Adams’ workaholic father.

At just under two hours, The Adam Project is stuffed with cheerfully indecipherable plot twists (nuclear reactors, crystals, equations) and mind scramblers (older characters manipulating their younger selves, variations of the butterfly effect). But it’s all at a competent, polished remove – complicated enough to get invested if you want, but built for passive enjoyment. The Adam Project may gesture at the grand world of time travel physics, but it’s actually quite a simple formula.

The Adam Project is available on Netflix on 11 March

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Featured stories, “the adam project” movie review.

As a movie-lover, I’ve seen a lot of them, especially action-adventure films. Very few of them, however, are ones I would watch again. Too many of them are rehashing the same plots, messages and themes that films of the past have.

“The Adam Project,” released on March 11 on Netflix, is a Sci-Fi action film directed by Shawn Levy, who has directed movies such as the “Night at the Museum” movies, “Real Steel” and recent hit movie “Free Guy.” The movie’s protagonist, Adam Reed, played by Ryan Reynolds, is a time-traveling pilot from the future who travels to the past to save the future. The plot is nothing groundbreaking, and yet it steered clear from the boring old clichés of similar sci-fi movies. The message is something that most movies these days stay away from:the relationship between parents and their children. Very early in the movie the audience is shown the dichotomy of Adam’s feelings towards both of his parents from when he was twelve to when he is older. This subplot creates a powerful message of understanding parents’ love and their actions.

My biggest problem with a lot of action movies today is that they rely too much on comedy. Marvel movies are a perfect example of this. I shouldn’t be laughing during the final battle to save the universe from the Mad Titan Thanos who wants to wipe out half of the population of all living things. I feel like that is something that should be taken a little more seriously. When Reynolds is on screen, I know I’m in for a laugh, but I was concerned that the story wouldn’t take itself seriously enough when it needed to be. However, I was worried for nothing. The movie was funny, but when it came down to the serious events and elements, it was serious, which made the characters feel more real.

The weakest link in “The Adam Project” was the villain, Maya Sorian played by Catherine Keener. Sorian was a billionaire sponsor of the project that created time travel. In the future, she runs the world and rules with an iron fist. She became a narcissist obsessed with her own gain, but that was the extent of her character. The film does not explain how she got to where she was and why. We don’t learn what drives her lust for power. Sorian doesn’t develop as a character throughout the movie. She remains stagnant in her beliefs and views from beginning to end. Overall, she is just a plot device that could have been filled by anyone.

The cast of “The Adam Project” is absolutely stacked with Marvel superhero stars like Ryan Reynolds, Mark Ruffalo, Zoe Saldaña and other famous actresses like Jennifer Garner and Catherine Keener. But the actor who single handedly stole the show from all these big names and sold the plot was Walker Scobell, who played Adam’s twelve-year-old self. Scobell managed to imitate Reynolds’ humor that we all know and love which made it believable that Scobell’s character is a younger version of Adam.

“The Adam Project” is one of the best stand alone movies I have ever seen. The plot was excellently paced and it managed to fit everything in in just under two hours. It’s not a long movie by any means so I never got bored and it doesn’t need three hours just to tell a good story. The dialogue was funny at times, but it took it seriously when it needed to be which made the characters feel real and relatable. Levy as a director is on a roll recently, with the very good stand alone film “Free Guy” (2021) and now “The Adam Project.” I’m looking forward to seeing what else Levy can give us.

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COMMENTS

The Adam Project movie review (2022)
The action and fight scenes are very well staged, especially one with a tender reunion in the midst of the mayhem. Big Adam's warming to his younger version gives the story some heart in the midst of the mayhem as well. There is genuine tenderness in his realization that anger does not prevent sadness and that second chances are possible.
The Adam Project
Mar 30, 2022 Full Review Liz Shannon Miller Consequence There are far worse ways to spend 106 minutes of your life, but The Adam Project seems likely to fade from the memories of Netflix viewers ...
'The Adam Project' Review: Back Talk to the Future
Early in "The Adam Project," a pipsqueak asthmatic named Adam (Walker Scobell) and his golden retriever gallivant through the woods among shimmering falling debris. The cause of the wreckage ...
The Adam Project Movie Review
Our review: Parents say ( 16 ): Kids say ( 46 ): The real surprise in this fun, layered, time-traveling action mystery is the tenderness with which family relationships and sentiments are handled. The Adam Project gives its characters the opportunity to go back in time to right misdirected relationships and fix missed chances to fully express ...
The Adam Project (2022)
7/10. Funny, Exciting and Endearing. rogier-86785 11 March 2022. The Adam Project is an adventurous film in the mould of Spielberg and other '80's and 90's pics, meaning confused conversations, quick quips, great close ups and seeing the world from a child's point of view as well.
The Adam Project Review
The Adam Project is as much about reconciling Adam's own past as it is about saving the future, a neat touch that elevates this beyond a simple time-travel yarn and gives the film a lot more ...
The Adam Project
The Adam Project will undoubtedly be a big hit for Shawn Levy, Ryan Reynolds, and Netflix. The film goes beyond its sci-fi time travel tropes and delivers some wonderful character-rich performances.
'The Adam Project' Review: Ryan Reynolds Meets His 12-Year-Old Self in
The Adam Project. 'The Adam Project' Review: Ryan Reynolds Meets His 12-Year-Old Self in Shawn Levy's Back-to-the-Future Action Confection. Reviewed online, March 8, 2022. MPAA Rating: PG-13 ...
'The Adam Project' Review
Ryan Reynolds in Netflix's 'The Adam Project': Film Review. The star reteams with 'Free Guy' director Shawn Levy, playing a time traveler who returns to fix the world while reconnecting ...
The Adam Project review: Ryan Reynolds confronts his younger self in
The movie-logic premise of it all, at least, is hard to argue with: Time travel exists, and Reynold's circa-2050 Adam Reed is somehow able to revisit his 12-year-old self (Walker Scobell) without ...
The Adam Project review
The Adam Project review - big-hearted family time-travel adventure. Ryan Reynolds stars as a pilot who crash-lands in 2022 and meets his 12-year-old self in this engaging Netflix film. R yan ...
Movie Review: Netflix and Ryan Reynolds' 'The Adam Project'
The Adam Project. Feels Like a Fake Movie. The Adam Project doesn't feel like a real movie. It feels phony both from the outside — Ryan Reynolds traveling back in time to meet his 12-year-old ...
The Adam Project Review
When rogue pilot Adam Reed (Reynolds), a time traveller from the year 2050, accidentally crash-lands in 2022, he finds himself face-to-face with his 12-year-old self (Scobell). Together, the pair ...
The Adam Project review: Netflix sci-fi movie lets Ryan ...
The film opens in 2050, just outside Earth's orbit, where Adam (Reynolds) — a classic "hotshot pilot who plays by his own rules" type — is preparing to steal a time-traveling jet. Adam ...
The Adam Project (2022)
The Adam Project: Directed by Shawn Levy. With Ryan Reynolds, Walker Scobell, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Garner. After accidentally crash-landing in 2022, time-traveling fighter pilot Adam Reed teams up with his 12-year-old self for a mission to save the future.
The Adam Project
The Adam Project stars Ryan Reynolds and is made by the same director, Shawn Levy, who made 2021's Free Guy. Those who've seen that movie will likely notice the parallels in style between the two films—a combination of somber relationships and heartfelt conversations mixed with the typical humor Reynolds brings to the screen.
The Adam Project Review: Old & Young Ryan Reynolds Capture Spielberg Magic
The Adam Project mercifully doesn't get bogged down in time travel mechanics, wasting little time to get the two Adams together on their journey. The rules the film follows will largely be familiar to anyone who's seen similar titles The Adam Project draws inspiration from. Big Adam and Young Adam's dynamic is a greater focus in the script and their relationship with their parents is the movie ...
'The Adam Project' review: A less-glib Ryan Reynolds makes for a bold
Mark Ruffalo as Adam's dad!), and Reynolds and Scobell have an easy, unforced chemistry. Let's talk Ryan Reynolds, you and me. And why The Adam Project feels like a small but significant — and ...
'The Adam Project' review: Ryan Reynolds can't escape the past
Rated: PG-13, for violence/action, language and suggestive references. Running time: 1 hour, 46 minutes. Playing: Available March 11 on Netflix. Get the Indie Focus newsletter, Mark Olsen's weekly ...
Ryan Reynolds quips through thin Netflix sci-fi
The Adams -12-year-old Adam in his "fixed time" (one's natural untampered timeline, so 2022) and 40-year-old Adam from 2050 - are tasked with finding Adam's future/current wife Laura ...
The Adam Project
Time flies.A time-traveling pilot teams up with his younger self and his late father to come to terms with his past while saving the future. Watch The Adam P...
The Adam Project
The Adam Project is a 2022 American science-fiction action comedy film directed by Shawn Levy and written by Jonathan Tropper, T. S. Nowlin, Jennifer Flackett, and Mark Levin.The movie stars Ryan Reynolds, Walker Scobell in his film debut, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Garner, Catherine Keener and Zoe Saldaña.In the film, fighter pilot Adam Reed (Reynolds) crash lands in 2022 after getting injured ...
"The Adam Project" Movie Review
The movie was funny, but when it came down to the serious events and elements, it was serious, which made the characters feel more real. The weakest link in "The Adam Project" was the villain, Maya Sorian played by Catherine Keener. Sorian was a billionaire sponsor of the project that created time travel. In the future, she runs the world ...
'Monkey Man' review: Dev Patel goes 'John Wick'
Patel portrays a nameless underground fighter, only known as "Kid" in the credits, who loses matches for profit. He gains more money if he bleeds. The protagonist soon makes his way into ...

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The Adam Project Reviews

‘The Adam Project’ Review: Ryan Reynolds Meets His 12-Year-Old Self in Shawn Levy’s Back-to-the-Future Action Confection

Owen Gleiberman

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Reviewed online, March 8, 2022. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 106 MIN.

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