Having nothing to do with Adam, this brand-new release didn't tempt me until a friend and I were perusing our Netflix options. He's big on time travel stories (so I've recommended Time Bandits to him), and I hadn't seen one in more than a year. Plus, this one has several Marvel movie alumni.
Adam Reed (Ryan Reynolds), son of accidental time travel inventor Louis (Mark Ruffalo), attempts to fly a time jet from 2050 to 2018, the last known time point for his wife, Laura (Zoe Saldana). The tyrannical Maya Sorian (Catherine Keener) forbids him, and a gunshot from her right-hand man (Alex Mallari, Jr.) forces Adam to stop in 2022, too injured to fly unassisted for a while. There he meets his 12-year-old self (Walker Scobell), whom he reluctantly needs to reactivate his jet. Their mission becomes bigger than rescuing one woman: As the trailer reveals, they may see fit to use time travel to prevent its own invention.
Does Adam land right outside his childhood home by sheer coincidence? Possibly, unless he picked the location where he'd feel safest. There are certainly contrived moments (e.g., how well he recovers from the shot without a doctor), especially at the physics-bending climax. And that's putting aside the fishy time travel premises, which I don't feel like detailing.
Sorian herself is only so credible. Her younger adult self (same actress) isn't nearly as willing to threaten lives for the sake of personal power. The way the two interact, you'd think they had a mere business partnership going sour.
But that's nothing compared with 40-year-old Adam's annoyance at his kid self, the worst I've seen in a feature film since Looper. I'll grant that young Adam talks too much, often on the rude side, and doesn't respect boundaries or his stressed-out mom (Jennifer Garner). But he's not hard for the audience to like or at least sympathize with, between familial grief and helplessness against bullies. And might I say, Scobell does a good Reynolds impression for a child actor.
The bulk of the comedy is in the clashing of the two Adams, eventually with Louis joining in. I suspect that there was a good deal of improvisation going on. It works pretty well on that front. Of course, this being Hollywood, they have to take a turn toward reconciliation by the third act. The result isn't syrupy-sweet, but it's nice enough.
In terms of action and adventure, well, you saw what I had to say about contrivance. Fortunately, there's some good stuff if you're into sci-fi chases and fight sequences. Not that any of it is all that innovative; if you're like me, you'll think of various movies, even beyond the several the Adams mention.
My friend and I made a few snarky comments along the way, but we're both glad we saw TAP. It's strong where it most needs to be, and it invites us to think about something we don't always: how we might interact with their past selves if we could.
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