Believe it or not, the new Netflix movie, The Adam Project, was my first time ever having the pleasure of watching a movie starring the esteemed actor, Ryan Reynolds. Reynolds is known for starring in numerous movies, which makes it even more surprising to me that I have never crossed paths with one. 

But let me say, it certainly did not disappoint. From his witty moments to perfectly timed, fluid facial expressions, Reynolds ruled the screen. It makes me eager to finally find time to grab a spot on the couch and give Free Guy a try—another new movie Reynolds stars in that I have yet to see. 

In The Adam Project, Reynolds plays the older, middle-aged form of the character, Adam, while the 12-year-old version is played by Walker Scobell, who is a young actor just starting his acting career—what I believe will be a quite promising future for him. 

The movie displays two different-aged Adams because the plot revolves around the theme of time travel. To preface, I am never one to gravitate toward any kind of sci-fi movie besides on rare occasions, so I don’t have a plethora of knowledge concerning sci-fi movies to compare this one to. 

Nevertheless, I am glad I took the time to watch Reynolds’ Adam, from the futuristic world of 2050, meet his 12-year-old self, based in 2022, and—to put it plainly—save the world from mass destruction with time travel technology. 

In general, I applaud the acting skills displayed by the dynamic characters. I was especially entranced by the acting banter between Reynolds and Scobell when they took over the scene as a duo. It reminded me of an older brother and a younger brother having little meaningless discrepancies and simply fighting for no good reason. 

Since both the Adams were technically supposed to be the exact same person, the parallels and mirror moments to illustrate that phenomenon were almost flawless; the entire act was superbly believable. 

But to put aside the commemorable acting in this movie, the plot and storyline were a little bit of a different story. There were multiple points where I had to take a moment to process what was actually going on due to the incredibly fast pace—which isn’t necessarily a bad thing—and the endless introductions of new characters. 

Villainous characters such as Maya Sorian (Catherine Keener) and Christos (Alex Mallari) played the roles of resistance to what the Adams were trying to accomplish, but we never got any true backstory explanation. I never really knew their motives or why they were purposefully trying to get in the way of a seemingly justified plan to save the world. 

I feel like if more of the characters—even those who weren’t villains—displayed more of their backstory, it would’ve filled in the gaps between the past and present storylines and would allow the viewer to become more attached to the characters. That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy the story; I just thought it was missing some pieces. 

One element of the movie I did find very fulfilling and worth the watch was the carefully crafted connections between each character. Throughout the movie, the relationships go from messy and strained to more connected, and though the journey was far from easy, it was worth it in the end. 

My favorite scene was toward the closing of the movie where Adam from 2050 and Adam from 2022 are playing catch—an activity that has a sentimental background to the boys—with their father. I won’t reveal what makes that scene so prevalent to the plot or why it tugged on my heartstrings a bit, but it was a delicately placed scene that provided perfect closure to the movie. 

I can’t believe this was the first movie I have ever watched that starred Ryan Reynolds. I will definitely continue to keep up with his acting now, starting with Free Guy.