The Adam Project Movie Review — Sucharita Tyagi
I love time travel stuff, I love it so much that I'm currently watching a Turkish show about time travel! Wait till the end of this article for my ‘Relation Mein Recommendation.’
Par Ryan Reynolds, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Garner jaisey actors, who are mostly hired to be extreeeemely likable, unke hone ke baavjood time travel waali film properly BLAHHH banaa dena…..woh ek alag talent hai.
Too harsh? Maybe.
Today we’re talking about the Ryan Reynolds starrer, ‘The Adam Project’, on Netflix.
Ryan Reynolds is Adam, a time-traveling soldier/fighter of some sort who’s come back to look for his wife, who is also a time-traveling soldier/fighter of some sort and has gone missing during one of her time jumps. His plane crash lands and he ends up hiding out in his childhood home, where he meets his childhood self. A strict no-no wrt time travel rules, but they team up anyway, to try and stop all of this from happening, and destroy time travel as a concept before it even occurs.
Now, like every other living-breathing person, I love watching Ryan Reynolds goof-off, make fun of himself, and kick some ass, while looking….well the way he does.
Par abhi ho gaya na thoda?
His last feature was with the same director jisne yeh film banaayi hai, Shawn Levy, ‘Free Guy’, a movie I thoroughly enjoyed for how imaginative and fresh and funny it was. Sure it’s the same Ryan Reynolds cute funny sexy self-deprecating schtick, but the movie had the audacity to imagine a new world, with imaginary characters and use that to highlight deeper issues plaguing humanity, like our reliance on tech to make personal relationships, capitalism, the desire to escape from things etcetera etcetera. Also, Taika Waititi was there.
In their second outing together, they try to do too much and it just doesn’t work. For one, it’s a whole lot of Ryan, then a child actor who has been instructed to BE like Ryan, then Zoe Saldana doing Gamorra without the Gamorra makeup, Mark Ruffalo doing Dr. Banner without the Hulk makeup, quick overlapping dialogue plus superhero music and CGI, and Jenniffer Garner just being sweet and pretty and comforting.
Barring Jennifer Garner, the rest reached saturation points gradually over the last few years, and The Adam Project feels more like uninspired rehashing, rather than reinvention.
Time travel is mega interesting to watch because it's fun exercising your brain to keep up with the timelines. Shows like Loki manage to keep it coherent using various techniques, and good writing + the long duration of a whole series. In a feature, rules have to be established quickly because time travel changes with every single person who imagines it.
Harry Potter, Run Lola Run, The Avengers, Tenet, baburao ka style sabmein alag alag hai. And it seems like between movies shows and books we’ve seen or read every way imaginable. Toh time travel ab yaa toh aapko itna complicated banana padega ki suljhaane ke liye PhD lagey, which is also fun, ya itna fresh that it's easy, but still engaging. Ya both.
‘The Adam Project’ doesn’t manage to do any of it. We still have characters pausing to say “boom” before they press a button to blow up a car, or “we’re gonna blow this bitch up”.
Unless you're Samuel L. Jackson, don’t.
Not to mention the sci-fi part of it isn’t impressive either. Older Adam needs younger Adam to open to use his DNA signature to allow access to his jet because older Adam is injured and hence the jet locked him out which even by the rules of this fictional universe, is so counterproductive, why would anyone make jets where injured pilots cant open them to reach for safety.
One stray bullet inside a huge facility where the main machine is kept shatters the electromagnetic seal, which leads to the film’s climax. One bullet. Aur aisa koi target chhota sa chhupa hua nahi hai, the bullet literally hits a giant sheet of glass and.
Boom.
Despite every other scene being a bag of exposition about how time travel works, none of the writing or world-building is engaging enough, to make you think about the passage of time, and how most of us are whiling it away. The movie works a bit during scenes between family members, particularly Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo giving us ‘13 going on 30’, but the attempts to have a soulful dialogue about meeting your younger self, do not translate.
‘The Adam Project’ attempts to woo you with cool effects, including a new age light-saber, and tug at your heartstrings at the same time, while making you laugh successfully completing neither task. The funniest line is Ryan Reynolds describing his younger self as a “urinal cake who yells at you”. But sadly, that’s all there is.
The movie is streaming on Netflix. If you’re a Ryan Reynolds fan and need some time-pass this weekend, watch it.
Now for, Relation Mein Recommendation.
Told you na ki Turkish series dekh rahi hoon aajkal about time travel. Yeh bhi Netflix par, iska naam hai ‘Midnight At The Pera Palace’, set in the oldest European hotel of Turkey, Pera Palace in Istanbul, a hotel where Agatha Christie is said to have stayed while writing ‘Murder On The Orient Express’, and 4 episodes in, it's quite fun.
A journalist and a hotel manager go back in time to discover their involvement in shaping Turkish history. 1920’s fashion, set design, politics, its maha mazey if you don’t mind reading subtitles.
We’ll also be talking about Pedro Almodovar ki nayi film, ‘Madres Paralelas’, the next time we meet, so stay tuned!
