The Adam Project

For all those who grew up in front of unforgettable science-fiction movies such as the Back to the Future trilogy (1985-1990), Wargames (1983), Starfighter (The Last Starfighter) (1984), discovering Shawn Levy's new movie is like opening the memory box and going back to his movies served by original scenarios and handling special effects with care to illustrate a perfectly calibrated story rather than hiding its numerous imperfections. This second collaboration between the actor Ryan Reynolds and this director was really expected as Free Guy had imposed itself as a blockbuster as original as paying tribute to video games and movies that marked our memories. 

The Adam Project) is again a visible tribute to the blockbusters of the 80s and mixes perfectly action movie, science fiction and romantic comedy. Yet far from being just another American blockbuster tailor-made for Ryan Reynolds, the film manages to move us as much as to hold our breath during the action scenes on land as during the aerial chases. After several comedies, Real Steel (2011) marked an important milestone for director Shawn Levy as his approach to science fiction was a way for him to offer more ambitious films with perfect casting.

The screenplay by Jonathan Tropper, T.S. Nowlin, Jennifer Flackett, Mark Levin is not intended to be a blockbuster that simply rehashes themes that have already been dealt with (time travel, family relationships, personal revenge) but rather to make viewers question our humanity and the desire not to get rich at all costs but rather to grow and work hard to succeed in life. By putting at the center of the story the association of the same character at two different ages of his life, the film revisits the theme of the time paradox and shows how technological revolutions can be misused and bring our society to its pure loss. While war is raging in Europe and Ukraine, it is important in these difficult times to be intelligently distracted and to forget for the time of a movie how our life is a permanent struggle between happy moments and other more difficult ones like the loss of a loved one. 

 While Top Gun has been postponed several times, it is good to be able to find again perfectly brought aerial combat scenes and this feeling of being totally immersed in a film with deeply human characters and far from these invulnerable and often caricatured superheroes. The first scene of the film is perfectly timed to introduce Adam Reed (Ryan Reynolds), a fighter pilot who travels back in time and finds himself facing a child version of himself. This unlikely association certainly gives the film a very special tone. Between them, they will have to save the earth. Director Shawn Levy shows once again that he is a gifted director capable of giving the best of himself as long as he has an excellent script and the means to make the best of it. He benefits here from an excellent casting, be it the presence of the excellent Ryan Reynolds, as comfortable in a comedy as in an action movie, but also from excellent supporting actors like Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Garner, Walker Scobell, Catherine Keener and Zoe Saldana.

The real chemistry between director Shawn Levy and actor Ryan Reynolds is really felt in the picture and we can only support the character Adam Reed whose childhood was marked by the disappearance of a loved one and his future by meeting the one who will make him an excellent fighter pilot.

The only real reproach to make here is not to be able to discover this film in a cinema, as this blockbuster will make you spend an excellent moment and especially proposes us a family baseball game which reminds us that having strong family links is an important element to succeed in one's professional and personal life.

The Adam Project
Directed by Shawn Levy
Written by Jonathan Tropper, T.S. Nowlin, Jennifer Flackett, Mark Levin
Produced by David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, Shawn Levy, Ryan Reynolds
Starring Ryan Reynolds, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Garner, Walker Scobell, Catherine Keener, Zoe Saldana
Cinematography : Tobias A. Schliessler
Edited by Jonathan Corn, Dean Zimmerman
Music by Rob Simonsen
Production companies : Skydance Media, 21 Laps Entertainment, Maximum Effort
Distributed by Netflix
Release date : March 11, 2022

Viewed on March 08, 2022 (Screener press Netflix)

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