That's like us walking around with a bank balance stamped across our arm. Let me play the nitpicker here: First off, the idea that your "clock" is always visible is pretty stupid to begin with. The idea of an apocalyptic world isn't pushed far enough. When the clock ticks down to zero, I can't believe that people aren't going crazy robbing everybody that they can. And the 'ghetto' isn't as rough as it ought to be. Half the time it's trying to explain the world rather than showing you the world. However I feel there's something missing. It's awkward to try to keep track who are older and everybody's relationships. One day he rescues a rich Henry Hamilton (Matt Bomer) who is tired of life and leaves him 116 years of time. Rachel Salas (Olivia Wilde) is his mother. Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) lives day to day in the ghetto. In that way, society has divided into people who live day to day and people who are basically immortal. Your life becomes currency and you work to earn time. However there is the ability to transfer your time. In the end, despite its earnestness, in The Adam Project the heart is limited and plot conventional, leaving us with just another comfortable, forgettable action flick.Ĭast: Ryan Reynolds, Braxton Bjerken, Zoe Saldana, Mark Ruffalo, JEnnifer Garner.In the future, science has stopped aging at 25.
(There’s also a joke to be made in here somewhere about how she’s forever doomed to be the girlfriend lost in time considering her arc here isn’t all that different from Gomorrah's in Avengers: Endgame). Elsewhere, despite a fleeting role, Zoe Saldana continues to be an absolute joy to watch on screen (I'm not sure why we don't see her more often) and one of the most promising action stars out there. But Braxton brings little charisma and bland line reading to the part. It’s an incredibly exciting idea-to cast a younger, less refined version of Reynolds’ on-screen persona and imagine what it might look like to mount a buddy-cop comedy with both. The weak link here, unfortunately, is Braxton Bjerken as young Adam. It’s irreverent humour laced with hurt and rooted in regret.
While Ryan Reynolds continues his recent run of playing slightly different shades of the same merc-with-a-mouth character (which I personally never get tired of), here he brings an unshakable tragedy and pain to Adam. Older Adam lives with the regret and resentment of both. Young Adam is still reeling from the loss of his father (Mark Ruffalo) and giving his mother (Jennifer Garner) a hard time. What the Adam Project wants to do is make us feel. While they play with his futuristic toys and gadgets, the two inform each other's journeys and get each other going again. Much of the first leg of the movie essentially gives us an Iron Man 3 throwback - a broken man hanging out with a spirited, recently-lost-his-dad quippy kid. It’s hard to go wrong with Ryan Reynolds fighting bad guys with a lightsaber.
He ensures that, even at its most unremarkable, The Adam Project is never not enjoyable. And director Shawn Levy certainly knows his way around a fun blockbuster (Free Guy, Stranger Things, Night At The Museum). The Adam Project, hardly breaks new ground as hanging-out-with-your-younger-self time travel movies go (The Kid, Looper), but here, it is given the big sci-fi action-adventure treatment. Unless the key to beating the bad guys was hidden in cartoons or faking an interest in sports. I’m genuinely trying to think of a single life or death scenario where my even dorkier 12-year-old self would be of any value whatsoever. Injured and on the run, Adam travels back to 2020 where he meets his 12-year-old self (Braxton Bjerken), whose help he enlists to find his wife, bring down the bad guys and save the future. When his wife Laura (Zoe Saldana) goes missing, he uncovers a massive plot by those in power which threatens to weaponize time travel to conquer the world. Ryan Reynolds is Adam Reed, a time-traveling pilot from a dystopian future where time itself has become commodified…or something. You might even say it’s as familiar as going back in time to meet your younger self. The plot here is conventional and familiar.