"The Adam Project": review

2022's "The Adam Project," another Netflix exclusive production, is directed by Shawn Levy ("Free Guy") and stars Ryan Reynolds, Walker Scobell, Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo, Zoe Saldana, and Catherine Keener. 

Basically a noisy, action-filled, time-travel romp aimed squarely at kids, "The Adam Project" tells the story of time-jet pilot Adam Reed (Reynolds), who steals a jet in 2050 and attempts to get back to 2018 to rescue his wife Laura (Saldana), but ends up in 2022, where he meets his younger self (Scobell) and has to figure his way out of this tangle. Older Adam is wounded when he arrives in 2022, and his jet won't let him back inside until he is healed, so he uses the workaround of asking his younger self—with his healthy DNA—to get him back inside the jet. 

Meanwhile, we get a lot of family history: in 2022, Adam's physicist father Louis (Ruffalo) has been dead for a year and a half, and Adam's mother Ellie (Garner) is trying to cope with grief while dealing with younger Adam, who is shrimpy, mouthy, and resentful. Younger Adam also has problems at school: he's being bullied by a group of larger students, often getting himself in trouble by constantly mouthing off. We also learn that time travel became commonplace in the future thanks in part to the underhanded machinations of Louis Reed's associate Maya Sorian (Keener), a business magnate more interested in the benefits of time travel than in its science or ethics. We learn that Louis is fated to die in a car accident in 2020, while Laura, whom Adam thought dead, has actually used another time jet to travel back a few years to wait for Adam to come after her and rescue her. Laura is no shrinking violet, though: as Adam says, she was the best pilot in the academy, and she turns out to be a fierce soldier.

So the movie's selling point is that it's a buddy flick, but one involving two versions of the same person: older Adam has become angry and hard-bitten, but younger Adam, recently bereaved, is well on his way to becoming the older Adam. This older-self/younger-self interplay allows for some therapeutic moments as the younger Adam reminds the older Adam that the past wasn't all misery, and that their dad—who laid out the theoretical groundwork for time travel—wasn't always a remote academic, but was instead a warm-but-imperfect father who did indeed love his son. As the two Adams work together, they realize they're going to have to take the time jet back to 2018 to find their father because he's the key to untangling their problem. Meanwhile, Maya Sorian and her henchmen travel into the past to hunt Adam and Laura down.

There's a lot going on in this movie, plot-wise, and the story moves along at a healthy pace. There are aspects of the plot that don't make sense, and as with any number of movies these days, you shouldn't look too closely at the science (or at the metaphysics of time travel), which doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Just turn your brain off and enjoy the ride.

The movie gets credit for having a heart. Jennifer Garner does a fine job as a put-upon mom dealing with stress that's coming at her from multiple directions, all while trying to put on a brave face. The scenes in which the two Adams meet their dad and hash out some deep-seated issues are nicely done, even touching. I also found it amusing to see Mark Ruffalo once again in a role where he has to talk about time travel (as he did in the role of Professor Hulk in "Avengers: Endgame").

But the movie also has some problems. Catherine Keener has played villains in the past (cf. her role as the evil Maxine in "Being John Malkovich," the first role I ever saw her in), but her Maya Sorian comes off as bland, detached, and underwritten here. Either she was miscast, or the script didn't provide her role with enough impact. And while a lot of people are heaping praise on Walker Scobell as the younger Adam... I'm not one of them. There was something annoyingly grating about the kid. Part of the problem was Scobell's acting, which I found to be way too self-conscious (kids watching this movie won't notice), and part of the problem was the scriptwriters' tendency to make young Adam sound far too witty for his years. Not many twelve-year-olds are going to be talking about "skipping leg day," for instance. Child actors are always a bit of a hazard in movies; some kids do a great job giving sincere performances, like Henry Thomas in "E.T." Other kids just come off as fake, and for me, that was true of Scobell. Sorry, but I have to voice my unpopular opinion.

That said, the movie will be great fun for kids. It's a bit sweary at times, but not overly. The special effects are generally good, except for a de-aged Catherine Keener, and the sound effects are loud. Deaths tend to be bloodless, but the action is generally suspenseful and gripping. Both Adams get plenty of one-liners; some are misses, but many are hits, and I even laughed out loud a couple times. Overall, it's hard to hate this movie, but do go in knowing that it's riddled with flaws. If you're like most of the people who've seen this film, you'll enjoy Walker Scobell's performance, but be warned that your mileage may vary.