Title – The Adam Project (2022) 

Director – Shawn Levy (Real Steel) 

Cast – Ryan Reynolds, Walker Scobell, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Garner, Catherine Keener, Zoe Saldana

Plot – Travelling back from the future, pilot Adam (Reynolds) must team up with his younger self (Scobell) to help save humanity from a path that will lead to its destruction.  

“I spent 30 years trying to get away from the me that was you”

Review by Eddie on 16/03/2022

As I sit down to write this review it’s been a few days since I partook in Netflix’s latest high profile release The Adam Project and for the life of me, I can barely recall more than a handful of scenes from a film that wants desperately to tap into the goodness that existed in these type of sci-fi/action hybrids in the late 80’s early 90’s heyday but comes across as yet another Netflix original that fails to hit the mark. 

A re-teaming of Free Guy directing/acting duo Shawn Levy and Ryan Reynolds, with the two Hollywood figures recently announcing they will be working on Deadpool 3 together, Project feels cut from the same cloth as their overrated video game come to life blockbuster as Levy and Reynolds predictable and cosmetically sentimental tale takes hold with Reynolds over-worn and tiring shtick helping ensure that the story of his futuristic pilot Adam returning to the past to team up with his younger self to save the future is the type of Hollywood candy that will fool many into thinking they’ve watched something far better/heartfelt than they in fact have partaken in. 

There’s a great concept here, despite it being mostly predictable and clearly inspired and built from components of other (and better) films and there are snippets in the film where you can see what might have been done with Reynolds and his younger counterpart Walker Scobell relationship that can be both hilarious and full of heart but these moments are not enough to carry other lagging areas of the film that includes some incredibly bland and tiresome action, insanely poor CGI (de-aged Catherine Keener is something I wish deeply to erase from my memory) and yet another Ryan Reynolds performance that can be added to his recent string of sleepwalking efforts that showcase an actor that needs some serious time away to come back with a new mantra. 

The best and worst thing to have happened to him in Hollywood, since the dawn of the Reynolds/Deadpool persona that was born in 2016, Reynolds has done very little to try and break away from his smart-talking and wise-cracking string of performances that have all become interchangeable with one another, so much so that if Reynolds walked in from the set of 6 Underground, Red Notice, Free Guy or Deadpool 2 and straight onto the set of The Adam Project there would be no one to tell the difference from an actor that has become a caricature shell of his real life self to a point where its becoming to much to bare. 

Unquestionably there are those that can’t get enough of this modern day Reynolds and there will be many that are more forgiving towards such an incessantly lazy continuing of Reynolds recent work, with some viewers even likely to be wrapped up in what sugary sentimentality Project provides without questioning the many bland and poorly done components but for anyone unwilling to be given something so sickly sweet, Netflix’s latest heavily viewed offering is nothing more than a time filler without the substance to become either something of note or just something providing inventive and fun entertainment. 

Final Say – 

There’s a fun concept at the heart of The Adam Project and a few winning moments of respite but thanks to Reynolds continually frustrating laziness and Levy’s play by numbers directional approach, Netflix’s latest high profile release is one time will be quick to forget. 

2 tight jackets out of 5