Director: Shawn Levy

Story By: Jonathan Trooper, TS Nowlin, Jennifer Flackett, & Mark Levin

Cast: Walker Scobell, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener, Zoe Saldana, Mark Ruffalo, and Jennifer Garner. 

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This was surprisingly good. I wasn’t even expecting it. 

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Theme & Story: A-

Pacing: A-

Character: C

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Entertainment Factors

General Public: Interesting Enough

Film Enthusiasts: Don’t Watch

Experience Seekers (via Visuals & Score): Don’t Watch

Sci-Fi / Adventure Fans: Interesting Enough

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TAKEAWAYS:

1. A child with a slick mouth dealing with bullying and family loss is suddenly face to face with his future self who arrives on earth to help save humanity from an opportunist betrayal. 

This is The Adam Project.

Thematically, I watched a film that focused on the relationship between self sacrifice—literally and figuratively—and supporting the well being of others—whether intimately or commonly. 

Act One doesn’t really touch on the theme too much. Instead, we get more focus on our young character—mainly his personality and school experience. We do get a a small glimpse of his “inconsiderate nature” with his mother, but nothing to really anchor his selfishness. Personally, from a middle school teacher perspective, he was right on point personality and behavior wise.  

Act Two was cute. The interaction between present day and future Adam was entertaining, and I felt there was a subtle focus on the self sacrifice aspect of the theme via future Adam’s love story. I also like how the betrayal aspect of the story was woven in from the love story.

Everything seemed to be fully actualized in Act Three. The idea of self sacrifice for the sake of saving humanity seemed to be the mission of this Act for me, and was also another thoroughly entertaining and cute Act. Now, what I didn’t like was the father and son dynamic at times. I’m not sure if I needed the added tension outside of the obvious tension being fear of the past and future interacting—that made sense. 🤷🏾‍♂️

2. Whatever the past relationship is/was with Christos was also fun to watch. He played his static character role well. 👍🏾

3. You know… that CGI work wasn’t too shabby. It felt ambitious, but executed well.👍🏾 

4. Hmmm… Mark Ruffalo seemed like he was playing Bruce Banner… but with a family after taking treatment to stop his “Hulking reactions.” It wasn’t bad, just saying the casting was right for him—safe. 🤷🏾‍♂️👍🏾

5. The Adam Project has a runtime of about 90 minutes, and it was definitely an engaging use of time—I must admit. Again, Ryan Reynolds and Walker Scobell interactions helped aid in this for me, and the “chase” and purpose that picked up around Act Two onward helped elevate my viewing experience. 

However…the only issue with pacing I had was around the thematic followthrough with our main characters. 🤷🏾‍♂️

6. I needed more from Maya. Her motivation felt a little lazy…🤷🏾‍♂️

7. OMG, the moment when Lil Adam find the “courage” to face off with the Christos. So cute… unfortunate, but cute… 😂😩

8. Poor Jennifer Garner… I just felt like they didn’t know what to really do with her. 🤷🏾‍♂️

9. As mentioned with point #1, I found the characters to be really cute. Walker Scobell was such an adorable and effective child actor, and a perfect complement to The comedic pacing of Ryan Reynolds. 

Zoe did what she was asked to do, and did it well. Enough said. 

Thematically, character follow through wasn’t strong for me. There were a lot of things I found to be forced upon young Adam’s existence to make him more than just this cute counter-character to Ryan. There was nothing about these characters that made me think they struggled with caring about others…It’s here they I feel pacing moved too fast focusing on the engagement and “villain vs hero” blueprint, and not enough to give our “heroes” some real “life” to be anchored on.🤷🏾‍♂️

10. The last game they played together… 😩

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Overall #TheAdamProject gives Spider-Man: No Way Home – meets Avengers: End Game – meets Star Wars – meets The Kid.

I honestly enjoyed this film, and a lot of it had to do with the chemistry between not just Ryan and Walker, but from most of the interacting actors in Acts Two and Three. The film could definitely work on a tighter theme and story connection for me, but it wasn’t like it was loose and sloppy. It was a pretty straightforward sci-fi premise.