The Adam Project
Ryan Reynolds is at his personal best as a time-travelling pilot who ends up having to protect his younger self.
Self assessment: Walker Scobell and Ryan Reynolds
Time travel exists. We just don’t know it yet. These nine words cheekily introduce yet another time-travelling romp in which much of the quantum physics should really be taken on trust. We do trust our protagonist, though, an asthmatic twelve-year-old boy called Adam (Walker Scobell) who, like so many before him, unwittingly invites all the school bullies to bash his face in. His long-suffering mother, Ellie (Jennifer Garner), driving Adam back from school after a third suspension, is aware that her child’s smart mouth has a habit of getting him into trouble. “He was twice your size,” she argues. To which Adam answers: “Everybody is twice my size. I’ve seen babies bigger than me.” Ellie is not impressed. She’s worried about Adam’s academic prospects: “This goes on your permanent record. Do you get that? Do you care about your future? You better start caring, because the future is coming – and sooner than you think.” And sooner than Ellie realises. While she’s out on a date that’s not a date, Adam hears a sound outside their house and discovers a stranger (Ryan Reynolds) in his late father’s garage, a stranger who is bleeding rather badly. But how strange is this guy? He seems to know an awful lot about Adam, including the scar beneath his chin that matches his own…
The first half of The Adam Project is so perfect that you just want to bottle it and preserve it for eternity. But like so many sci-fi action-adventures, it just falls over itself trying to cram in everything but the kitchen sink and a flux capacitor. The director Shawn Levy, who previously worked with Ryan Reynolds on the almost-perfect Free Guy, knows how to spur his horse into action but on the later laps is unable to rein in the odd stumble. Levy’s trump card is Ryan Reynolds, whose star wattage just refuses to dim over the years and here the actor is on especially excellent form. If there were an Oscar for personality power, Reynolds would be a shoo-in. Here, he’s never been better, both in his comic timing and the film’s few quieter moments, such as when the middle-aged Adam (Reynolds) meets his mother (Jennifer Garner) in a bar. It’s pure magic, and Reynolds’ cocky irreverence melts away to reveal a heartfelt tenderness that is acutely touching.
Reynolds and Levy are fast becoming the Scorsese/De Niro of pop-cultural cinema with Levy, at the time of writing, inked in to direct the third Deadpool movie with Reynolds later this year. But while The Adam Project is full of lovely little touches (the John Travolta sweatshirt, the golden retriever pup called Hawking), its emotional momentum falls short of what either James Gunn or Steven Spielberg might have brought to the table. Sure, there are elements of both of the great men here (the flippant vibe of Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, the kid in the woods at night with a preternaturally bright torch), but the fighting goes on for too long and the heart at the heart of the film gets left behind. But to be fair to Shawn Levy, he really knows how to direct kids (cf. Cheaper by the Dozen, Stranger Things) and his film’s other ace up its sleeve is the performance of Walker Scobell as the younger Adam. Scobell and Reynolds are a terrific double act, made all the more disarming as they are playing the same character at different ages. Add this thespian chemistry to some priceless dialogue and The Adam Project is a genuine pleasure – for as long as it keeps its feet on the ground.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Garner, Walker Scobell, Catherine Keener, Zoe Saldaña, Alex Mallari Jr, Braxton Bjerken, Kasra Wong, Zishan Baig, Benjamin Wilkinson.
Dir Shawn Levy, Pro David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, Shawn Levy and Ryan Reynolds, Screenplay Jonathan Tropper, T.S. Nowlin, Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin, Ph Tobias Schliessler, Pro Des Claude Paré, Ed Dean Zimmerman and Jonathan Corn, Music Rob Simonsen, Costumes Jenny Eagan, Sound Angelo Palazzo and Dave Grimaldi.
Skydance Media/Maximum Effort/21 Laps Entertainment-Netflix.
105 mins. USA. 2022. UK and US Rel: 11 March 2022. Cert. 12.
