One of my all time favorite plot devices ever since I could remember is time travel. Little kid me used to “build” a “time machine” out of boxes and chairs, get inside and hope it took me back in time through the sheer power of “I wanted it really badly.” The brilliant thing about time travel stories as a story is the possibilities are nearly limitless for what you could do with it. The bad thing about it is there’s limitless ways plot holes could be created as traveling to the past and creating different timelines just makes everything…complicated. Here’s the thing: because our understanding about how it would work in real life is entirely theoretical so far, we have to learn to accept any time travel story is going to have plot holes, no matter how good the writing seems to be.
That being said, all time travel plots have varying degrees of scientific explanation that could go into them. Sometimes, it has little to no explanation, which works well for light hearted comedies such as Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Some have just enough to make it feel plausible and benefit the plot, like the Back to the Future movies. And some, well… focus way more on the science than anything else. That’s unfortunately why movies like Primer ultimately fail for me. Sure, the science is there, but I don’t really care. I know it was extremely low budget, but it doesn’t cost anything to write a film with character motivations I actually cared about.
My somewhat long tangent is going somewhere, I swear. What if a time travel movie did the opposite of Primer, and put more focus on character development than science? Could we, as science fiction nerds, take it seriously? The Adam Project is as close of an anti-Primer as I could think of. Directed by Shawn Levy, this Netflix produced film stars Ryan Reynolds as Adam, a wise cracking pilot from the year 2050, who “borrows” a time traveling device for a secret mission but accidentally ends up in the year 2022. As luck would have it, he crash lands close to his 13 year old past self (Walker Scobell.) Now both older and younger Adam must team up to fix the time machine, their timeline, and maybe even the fate of the world itself. Besides Reynolds, the film features an impressive cast, including Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo, Zoe Saldaña, and Catherine Keener.
Having seen no tailors for this movie until I watched it, I didn’t know quite what to expect. Anything staring Ryan Reynolds at this point is sure to be at least a little funny. On that front, it definitely delivered, as the dialogue is every bit as snarky, and at times self-aware as we’d come to expect. The real surprise is young Adam (who looks scarily similar to Ryan Reynolds I might add) being able to match snark for snark with Reynolds and do a pretty good job of it. This movie definitely wouldn’t have worked if the two actors playing the same person didn’t have the synergy Scobell and Reynolds did.
Another surprise The Adam Project gave me was for every bit of action and snark comedy it had, it was almost doubled by its sheer amount of heartfelt moments. Like seriously, I don’t expect to tear up 1/3 of the way through movies like this, let alone a handful more times after that. I won’t say it’s the biggest comedy hiding a sob-fest I’ve ever seen (that award goes to Click), but it certainly gave me feels that I wasn’t prepared to have. Special shout out to Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo, who play Adam’s parents, and both showed wonderfully touching performances.
Ok, so The Adam Project certainly is good at making us care about the characters. But it is still after all a sci-fi/time travel movie. Does it ultimately work as one? For the most part, yes. The technology behind time travel does get some (yet thankfully minimal) explanation, and even becomes integral for the plot. The other tech from the future is pretty cool looking…maybe too cool for existing only 27 years away, but hey, who am I to predict what future tech will end up like. I think the only thing that doesn’t work in this movie is they created a dismal sounding future that we barely get to see, as well as how commonplace time-traveling becomes, without telling us the details of the terrible repercussions of it. I’m actually pretty interested in this setting, but I needed just a little more to feel satisfied. I do sort of understand why it’s like this, though. I could tell this movie was definitely aimed to be enjoyed by younger audiences, who may become bored by these overly stuffy details.
Overall, The Adam Project is a breath of fresh air compared to the rather cold, pessimistic time travel movies I’ve been seeing come out these past few years. It’s sort of like if Looper was made by someone who just wanted another Back to the Future. And much like Back to the Future, The Adam Project will be enjoyable to watch over and over not because it’s about time travel, but because we actually care about the characters and why they are embarking across their adventure through time.
