The Adam Project

Vulture's Bilge Ebiri reviews 'The Adam Project,' the latest Netflix blockbuster from 'Free Guy' director Shawn Levy and Ryan Reynolds, co-starring Mark ...

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. 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. 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. 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. And the strangest thing is that The Adam Project seems to know this.

'The Adam Project' has jumped to the top of Netflix's Top 10 charter across countries worldwide a day after its release on the platform.

One of the greatest things about this movie is the interaction between Adam and his younger self. Is this the story of a man reconnecting with his younger self, searching for his missing wife (the "love of his life"), righting the wrong past behavior towards a grieving mother, or meeting with his dead father with the opportunity to say a final goodbye? After asking his younger self his age, middle-aged Adam sees he has travelled to the wrong year. It is only when he finds his wife, Laura (played by Zoe Saldaña), or rather when she finds him, that it becomes clear that it was she Adam was searching for. When he finds Laura, Adam (and by extension, the viewers) discovers the real reason why he should have travelled back to 2018: to meet his late father, Louis Reed (played by Mark Ruffalo), and save the world from a power-and-money-hungry villain, Maya Sorian (played by Catherine Keener). Young Adam is being bullied and is regularly being suspended from school, to the dismay of his mother (played by a great Jennifer Garner), who pleads to the school principal for compassion for her son after losing his father less than a year ago.

Netflix's The Adam Project whizzes through its exposition to crack on with more action and jokes, so we take a step back to figure out how any of this ...

Young Adam is excited to meet his buff older self, but is naturally very confused and inquisitive about how time travel works. He wants to know if Adam remembers everything that’s happening, since they’re the same person and all. In the future, Adam has shifted his anger and grief from his mother’s shoulders onto his dead dad’s legacy: it turns out daddy Louis (Mark Ruffalo) was the one who accidentally invented time travel in the first place, causing a chain reaction that led to a very bleak future for everyone, including Adam.

Ryan Reynolds' life shares some very intentional parallels with The Adam Project's storyline, particularly a personal moment in the film.

According to the director, their goal was to "make a time travel movie that felt really grounded and foregrounded character and fun and adventure and heart that didn’t get too mired in the rules." In addition to Reynolds, The Adam Project stars Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Garner, Zoe Saldana, Walker Scobell, Catherine Keener, and Alex Mallari Jr. Not only did Ryan Reynolds draw inspiration from classic '80s films like E. T and The Goonies for theThe Adam Project, but he also borrowed from personal experience.

Many time travel movies have come and gone, each experimenting with plot, background, characters, and most importantly the science of time travel. But the ones ...

Back to the Future is nothing like the current generation of time travel movies. Back to the Future is one of the greatest time travel movies ever made. Directed by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, Synchronic explores the concept of time travel in a never-seen-before package. However, at the same time, there’s some understated philosophy of life that also makes the story a little melancholic. 12 Monkeys shares very little similarity with the works of The Adam Project, except for the fact that someone from the future goes back to the past to save the world. The movie stars John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, and Clark Duke in main roles. Now, this is a time travel story that is fun, exciting, and very Bill Murray. Groundhog Day makes you look at life differently, we promise. This is one of those sci-fi movies that deal with moral dilemmas and does that through grungy action sequences and a neo-noir-like premise. During one of his assignments, Joe finds out that his future self is also a target for the mob. If you love art, literature, and sci-fi, not necessarily in the same breath, then this is a movie for you. That being said, in the years between Back to the Future and The Adam Project, filmmakers have dished out a whole bunch of inventive, touching, and unforgettable time travel stories. But the ones who stay in our memories and go down in history as the most iconic, are the ones that have perfectly used all the elements that it takes to make an incredible story.

The Adam Project is the top movie on Netflix, and Ryan Reynolds' first blockbuster for them that's scoring well with critics.

The Adam Project is starting out very strong, debuting instantly at #1 on the service. Instead, it was Red Notice that was much more successful and became a franchise instead, with another installment on the way. If a big new movie starring Ryan Reynolds on Netflix is starting to feel familiar, that’s because the service has invested in Reynolds in a big way.