Netflix and Ryan Reynolds haven’t had the best of relationships, with Underground 6 and Red Notice being entirely average movies that wpuldn’t have fared too well on the big screen, well maybe Red Notice would have with the A List cast of Reynolds, The Rock and Gal Gadot, but overall the movies have been so-so. So with his next entry into the Netflix studio Movie, Reynolds just about manages to raise the bar with time travelling in The Adam Project.
After accidentally crash-landing in 2022, time-traveling fighter pilot Adam Reed teams up with his 12-year-old self for a mission to save the future.
The thing is with Ryan Reynolds, you either love him or hate him. His Schlick has become so chalk and cheese for most people, this is going to have huge bearing over whether you like The Adam Project or not. With Walker Scobell playing a note perfect younger version of Reynolds, you are going to have double the fun or double the trouble when you hit play on this. Reynolds has quintessentially been playing the same role since Van Wilder and then refined in Deadpool. But it’s what brings the people in so why fix what isn’t broke?
The Adam Project is more of the same and with his co-conspirator Shawn Levy from last years hugely successful Free Guy, the are hoping once more to hit pay dirt but The Adam Project doesn’t quite make hit the mark.
Time Travel movies are always difficult because of the physics and continuity issues. For every Back To The Future/Bill & Ted, you end up with twice the amount of Black Knight (Martin Lawrence) / Freejack type of films. The Adam Project just about succeeds in what it sets out to do and with huge Flight Of The Navigator-Master Of The Universe-About Time vibes throughout Levy pulls in several time travel movie tropes and references to keep things just about on track.
With a supporting cast that features Zoe Saldana, Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo and Catherine Keener, the film (Much like Red Notice) is filled with star power and decent actors that are woefully misused. Saldana literally turns up for two sequences and does, well not a lot really, Keener’s CGI De-Aging is very unsettling. But Reynolds manages to keep things moving as he tries to fix everything.
With an overly schamltzy finale that will more likely have people reaching for the stick bucket, rather than the tissues, the action sequences manage to prop up The Adam Project into for the most part a half decent adventure/comedy. The climatic chase and time reset looks great and has some excellent set pieces woven in and make it worth actually watching although it’s most likely to rank with Project Almanac and The Butterfly Effect as time travel movies you’ve watched, but can’t remember if you enjoyed working not.
The Adam Project is more likely to draw comparisons to a sequel of sorts to 13 Going On 30 due to who’s involved, but that’s an unfair comparison, overall it’s going to depend on your current opinion of Ryan Reynolds to whether this is a movie you will enjoy. A real throwback to 80’s time travel movies, it’s not going top anyones best of lists but it’s harmless enough for most people to enjoy for a while.

The Adam Project is available now to stream on Netflix