Project (Expectation) Management

When the new Percy Jackson and the Olympians series made a splash at the start of the year, several older clips of lead actor Walker Scobell resurfaced, from a few years ago when he was promoting his first-ever film, the Netflix movie The Adam Project, starring Ryan Reynolds. Oh yeah, I thought... I remember the half-week-or-so that movie felt like "a thing." And these clips of this kid quoting Deadpool around his cast mates (in full R-rated glory) seem hilarious. Maybe I should give the movie a chance.

The Adam Project is the story of pilot Adam Reed, who time travels back from a dystopian 2050 to try to find his girlfriend and stop the dark future from ever coming to pass. He crash-lands in 2022, where he meets up with his own 12-year-old self. Together, both must flee from future hunters as they pursue the older Adam's goal.

It seems like a couple times a year, Netflix just backs up the money truck and produces a giant $50 to $100 million movie that ought to be one of the tent poles of the summer blockbuster season... and then they just drop it exclusively on their service like everything else, where it quickly vanishes in an algorithmic swamp. The Adam Project easily could have been a widely-seen theater movie of 2022; instead, here I am reminding you it was actually a thing two years later. That's just how Netflix rolls.

Now, to be clear, I'm not here to tell you that The Adam Project was one of the best movies of 2022. It's pretty rote pulp sci-fi, and it doesn't think of anything especially clever with the "meeting your younger self" time travel premise that you wouldn't have thought of yourself. Yet at the same time, the movie certainly feels like a thing that more people should have seen, and would have talked about for a bit if they had. In my mind, that's because the cast is surprisingly excellent.

For one thing, there's a weirdly deep bench here in the supporting cast. Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo stage a mini "13 Going on 30" reunion here as Adam's parents, and the movie leverages their chemistry in making you want to see them together on screen more than you do. Plus, both bring a lovely bit of sentiment to an otherwise jokey, actiony movie. Catherine Keener makes for a fun villain, chewing up the scenery in a fun dual role (just don't look too closely at the "de-aging" effects used on her younger version). Zoe Saldaña, underheralded queen of multiple science fiction franchises, brings her high-wattage action star power to bear as well.

But, of course, the premise is the entire movie here: kid meets his future adult self. So the movie can only ever be as good as that pairing. And that part, at least, is excellent. Walker Scobell feels like he was grown in a lab to impersonate Ryan Reynolds (which, "retroactively" makes me appreciate his very different performance in Percy Jackson even more). The two have a fantastic rapport, deliver plenty of laugh out loud funny exchanges, and will generally make you glad you watched the movie... even if you decide the rest of it doesn't make a lick of sense and isn't all that great. (Seriously, just watch this and then tell me you're not open two more hours of it.)

I'll try to temper overall expectations, though, and say that I'd give The Adam Project a B-. It may well be that even if it had had a big summer theatrical release, we still wouldn't remember it much now. But I think it's a pretty fun diversion.