‘The Adam Project’ movie review: Time-turning feel-good ride

Shawn Levy’s film moves along smoothly, with snappy lines, cool soundtrack and the ultimate seduction of turning back the clock

Time travel! Worm holes! Kookie science!  Back to the Future!  Terminator! A golden retriever named Hawking! And Led Zeppelin! Shawn Levy’s next film after the wildly inventive  Free Guy has all this and more. There are some nice, zippy action sequences, fun lines including “I am the godfather of time travel?” and “We watch too many movies”, teary moments and a jolly cast. 

The movie opens in 2050 with hotshot pilot Adam Reed (Ryan Reynolds) stealing a time jet. Even as he makes the jump into a wormhole, he is shot and instead of reaching 2018 where he was he headed for a rescue mission, lands in 2022.  

His younger, 12-year-old self (Walker Scobell) is small for his age, asthmatic, a science nerd, asthmatic and bullied for his big mouth. He and his mum, Ellie, (Jennifer Garner) have different ways of coping with the loss of his father, Louis (Mark Ruffalo) who died in an accident a year ago. Adam gets into fights in school, while Ellie is trying to hold it all together and be strong for her son.  

Adam comes back from the future to find out what happened to his wife, Laura, (Zoe Saldaña) who vanished after making a leap into November 2018. There seems to be something rotten happening in the time travel business and Maya Sorian (Catherine Keener) seems to be behind it. There are all sorts of horrid people after Adam, including Sorian’s 2iC, Christos (Alex Mallari Jr.). 

Adam realises the only way to set things right (2050 under Sorain’s machinations is not a fun place) is to go back to 2018 and stop the science that would make time travel a reality. The cast is all good. Ruffalo is the physics professor whose classes one would not like to miss; he quotes the Romans while telling his class to have fun as “it is later than you thought”. If being a science nerd means one could grow up to become Reynolds, it is totally time to crack E=mc2. Keener with her straight hair and pant suits follows in the long tradition of wicked science ice queens. Garner is also in the long tradition of long-suffering wives and mums of brilliant husbands and sons.  

The Adam Project moves along smoothly, with snappy lines, cool soundtrack and the ultimate seduction of turning back the clock. Who would not wish for another chance to be able to spend more time with a loved one, to hold them and tell them that you love them? This is one time turner you could happily do a stint with. 

The Adam Project is currently streaming on Netflix