A great movie is one that gets you so emotionally invested that you barely even notice its flaws. Spend any more than a minute thinking about The Adam Project and it is entirely possible that its plot contrivances would just crumble before your very eyes. Neil DeGrasse Tyson it (yes, I’m using Neil DeGrasse Tyson as a verb) and none of the science actually holds up. Time travel happens because of so much jargon. The idea that memories reform and reconcile as a way to explain what happens when everyone returns to their respective timelines feels like throwaway filler that doesn’t really mean anything. This is sci-fi that is more Time Cop than Interstellar.
But none of that matters. Because it is also glossy escapism at its very best, plotted with the heart in mind, and executed with such effusive enthusiasm, that you can’t help but smile throughout.
The Adam Project is the kind of movie that you obsessed about if you grew up in the 1980s. It’s got cool toys. A young child saving the world. And just enough adultness that makes you feel naughty for watching it. If you are seven right now, this is the kind of movie that will likely change your life the way The Goonies, and E.T., and Star Wars, and The Last Starfighter changed mine. If you’re sad and don’t know how to deal with it, if you’re being bullied at school and can’t fight back, if you’re a nerd and haven’t yet found your tribe, if you’re an introvert, it’s movies like this that ultimately provide you with the emotional tools to come out on the other side. It’s movies like this that make you feel seen, that make you feel like you aren’t alone.
Don’t Drive at Eighty-Eight
Young Adam Reed (Walker Scobell) and his mother Ellie (Jennifer Garner) are still grieving. Adam’s father (Mark Ruffalo) died in a car accident a year-and-a-half earlier and the both of them have no idea how to communicate the tremendous emptiness that they each feel on a daily basis. Ellie copes by pretending like she’s got it all together, while Adam uses his stunning intellect and cutting wit to razz his mother and talk himself into getting bullied at school.
She needs to learn to be vulnerable with her son. He needs a father figure. Enter Adam from 30 years in the future. Because who better to impart wisdom than a version of yourself who’s seen it all, done it all, made the mistakes, and lived to tell the tale.
Ryan Reynolds plays the older Adam Reed, a time traveling fighter pilot from the year 2050 who accidentally ends up in the wrong year while trying to save the future from being a downright terrible place to live in. He was aiming for 2018, but ends up in 2022, where he hooks up with his 12-year-old self, before setting out on what can only be described as a Spielbergian adventure. There are bright blue lights. Schoolyard bullies. Single mothers and absent fathers. But also that sense of anxiety and wonder that comes from lying on your back and staring up into the endless night sky.
Look Kids, It’s Ryan Reynolds!
At this point, it feels like Ryan Reynolds is just doing a version of himself in every movie. That self-aware, sarcastic, smart-ass schtick was always a part of his charm and likability, but the mileage he gets from it really depends on who is behind the camera. It works in those ads for Aviation Gin and Mint Mobile, but comes off as incredibly annoying in Red Notice. Deadpool, yes. R.I.P.D., not so much.
In The Adam Project, director Shawn Levy does something different. By pairing him with Walter Scobell, by giving Ryan Reynolds a foil, by making his schtick a defensive coping mechanism for childhood loss and trauma, all of that smugness suddenly becomes an integral part of the story that he’s trying to tell. They too know that all of that Van Wilder stuff is becoming a little tiresome and found a way to make it feel a lot less grating. It’s clever. It’s a little bit subversive. It works.
Walker Scobell is a revelation. He is smart. He is funny. He holds his own against Ryan Reynolds. Their banter feels so fluid and easy you have no trouble believing that they are of one mind. Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Garner are effortlessly great. (My inner teenage girl squealed in delight over their long overdue 13 Going on 30 reunion!)
Feel Good Inc.
Shawn Levy wears his inspirations on his sleeves. He doesn’t pretend like The Terminator and Back to the Future don’t exist. In fact, he’s relying on your familiarity with those classics as a shorthand to keep his movie snappy and succinct. Why reinvent the wheel when you can refer to another time travel movie in order to explain the significance of what’s happening in yours?
Levy builds on everything that has come before, he weaponizes the nostalgia you have for George Lucas, Joe Dante, and Ron Howard, he exploits your fond memories of their movies as a tool to propel The Adam Project forward. There are moments when it’s a video game. There are others when it’s a cross between Star Wars and Top Gun. It’s got all of the emotional heft of a Steven Spielberg movie and the sheer unadulterated fun of a Robert Zemeckis one. In fact, this might be the closest approximation to an Amblin movie that we’ve seen in years. And God knows I’m here for it.
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