Netflix has a winner sci-fi comedy with the accomplished sarcastic actor Ryan Reynolds, whose Deadpool set the standard for snarky, sardonic, quipping dialogue not this successful since early film screwball days. Adam (Reynolds) comes back from the future to face his 12-year-old self (Walker Scobell, terrific) and destroy the creation of time travel by his scientist father, Louis Reed (Mark Ruffalo):
Adam: “I spent 30 years trying to get away from the me that was you. And I'll tell you what: you were the best part all along.”
Although this amusement is no Back to the Future, it is a swell diversion for a relaxed evening that doesn’t require knowledge of physics or even sci-fi (a little Twilight Zone experience is a plus in any imaginative playing with the time-space continuum). The most enjoyable is the first act where the two Adams from different time zones engage in witty repartee grounded in their same personalities from different times in the same life:
Young Adam: “Do you remember this? I mean, if this is happening to me, it already happened to you, right? Unless it works more like a multiverse. Each ripple creates an alternate timeline.”
Adam: [irritated] “It's not a multiverse! My God, we watched too many movies.”
Not only does the humor reference concepts from the Marvel universe, it also reminds us that several of the actors in The Adam Project spent time as Marvel heroes. Good fun that shows us as well how flexible sci-fi can be, especially as comic masters like Reynolds and young actors like Scobell give us enjoyable rides.
As The Adam Project continues on to face off the Adams family against their arch enemies, it is less an amusing comedy and more a CGI display moving all combatants to a formulaic ending saved by the personalities of its stellar cast.
Louis Reed: Sometimes it pays to be a nerd, guys.
The Adam Project
Director: Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum)
Screenplay: Jonathan Trooper (Kodachrome), et al.
Cast: Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool), Walker Scobell
Run Time: 1h 46m
Rating: PG-13
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics as well as podcasts Back Talk and Double Take. Contact him at JohnDeSando62@gmail.com
