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The Adam Project begins in 2050, where we’re told onscreen, “Time travel exists. You just don’t know it yet”.
Then, in the present day, one night, as young Adam Reed (Walker Scobell) sees his mum – Ellie (Jennifer Garner) going out on a date (and leaves the boy home alone, at the age of 12?), his older self (Ryan Reynolds) crashes outside his home in their rather spacious surroundings.
However, while he arrived in 2022, the intention was make that 2018 with a special, particular mission. Oh, but in the process of the crash, since the damaged time jet is coded with his DNA, and since it knows he’s injured and won’t let him inside the jet to fix it, who else can trigger the jet to open? Yep.
What keeps The Adam Project going well is that, as you’d expect, there’s quite a fair bit of wisecracking from Ryan, such as when he first sees his younger self, who sees his injury and tells him about the blood pouring out, to which the older one replies, “Well, there’s plenty more in my body(!)”
I love time-travel in films and TV shows, and the Adams bounce off each other brilliantly. There’s also potential paradoxical situations, but for the most part, the film handles this well.
It also turns into a daft action romp at times, as the powers that be send people from the future to bring him back before older Adam can get to his 2018 mission; I like how Laura (Zoe Saldana) – the character of which will be explained as you watch this – has rigged her house up with almost as much firepower as John Wick. However, gunfights are largely pointless, because it’s a 12-cert so no-one actually dies. It’s basically like an A-Team gunfight.
If I could, I wish I could meet myself as a kid, and give him a list of dumb things NOT to do later in life, but since I can’t, we have this film to tide us over until time travel is revealed to be a possibility.
If there’s any downsides, it’s the fact there’s elements of Back to the Future (even referencing that film here) and Timecop included, making it feel a bit derivative of other films, as well as Catherine Keener taking a role of a cardboard cut-out company boss. Also, Jennifer Garner’s character feels rather sidelined much of the time. However, try to stay focused on the relationship between the two leads, as that’s great.
The cast is fleshed out by Mark Ruffalo as Adam’s father from the era of when he’s a kid, and fans of Deadpool should also note the reference when “superhero landing” comes up.
Note that the trailer is below, but I feel it does spoil a few plot elements which are best served by watching the film first.
Thanks to our friends at Netflix for the screener prior to release.
The Adam Project is on Netflix from Friday March 11th, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
Check out the trailer below:
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 106 minutes
Release date: January 14th 2022
Studio: Netflix
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
Score: 7/10
Director: Shawn Levy
Producers: David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, Shawn Levy, Ryan Reynolds
Screenplay: Jonathan Tropper, TS Nowlin, Jennifer Flackett, Mark Levin
Music: Rob Simonsen
Cast
Big Adam: Ryan Reynolds
Young Adam: Walker Scobell
Louis Reed: Mark Ruffalo
Ellie Reed: Jennifer Garner
Laura: Zoe Saldana
Maya Sorian: Catherine Keener
Christos: Alex Mallari Jr
Ray: Braxton Bjerken
Chuck: Kasra Wong
Paul the Bartender: Donald Sales
Sophie: Esther Ming Li
Derek: Benjamin Wilkinson
8-year-old Adam: Isaiah Haegert
Professor: Milo Shandel
Young Sorian Body Double: Lucie Guest
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.