Movie Review: The Adam Project

(Fair warning, this article contains minor spoilers about The Adam Project)

Released in the United States on March 11, 2022, The Adam Project was not something that many people were excited about. It’s not a box office hit as it’s only viewable on Netflix. But despite the lack of media hype, The Adam Project successfully hit 3 millions viewers over its debut weekend. 

This movie stars Ryan Reynolds as Adam Reed, a pilot from 2050 attempting to travel back to 2018 to rescue his wife, Laura, who is played by  Zoe Saldaña. Instead, he crash lands in 2022, where he meets his 12-year-old self, played by Walker Scobell. 

Based on the above synopsis, it isn’t hard to tell where the plot of this movie goes. Older Adam enlists the help of younger Adam to fix his spaceship. There are discussions of time travel, paradoxes that might occur when you meet yourself from a different time, and the multiverse. Older Adam has some unresolved issues from his own past that younger Adam has yet to realize, and through visiting his past he is able to find some healing. The morality and potential dangers of the power that comes with the ability to time travel is explored.

In my opinion, this movie wasn’t bad. It kept me entertained with a good mix of intellectuality through the exploration of time travel as a concept, humor written into the meeting of older and younger Adam, and action scenes. I definitely enjoyed it. However, it wasn’t necessarily groundbreaking. The plot was somewhat predictable, and although the explanation for time travel paradoxes in this movie was something I hadn’t heard before, it was somewhat shallow. Overall, I would recommend this movie to anyone who just needs something to watch, but not necessarily to someone looking for an amazing film.

Outside of my own opinion, I did some research on what the critics had to say about the Adam Project. This movie scored a 69% through RottenTomatoes. Most of the critics’ reviews noted the lack of originality, or the fact that Ryan Reynolds has done similar films, but most also noted that the movie was entertaining. Critic Sameen Amer wrote “The Adam Project doesn’t let its mediocrity keep it from being fairly entertaining.”. 

All in all, The Adam Project is a decent movie. It contains just enough quality to be entertaining, but definitely isn’t anything mind-blowing. If you’re just looking for something to watch over the weekend and want to stay home, I would definitely recommend it.

Sources:

• https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_adam_project
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adam_Project
• https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2463208/