Deadpool may not be returning to theaters anytime soon but Ryan Reynolds shows no signs of slowing down. He followed up 2021's Red Notice, Free Guy and The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard with a streaming-exclusive feature. So sit back, relax, pour yourself some aviation gin and get ready to roll your eyes as we dive headlong into...The Adam Project.
**SPOILERS AHEAD**
Our tale begins in the year 2050, with Ryan Reynolds flying an aircraft high above the Earth -- for f*%ksake, I'm getting Green Lantern vibes. Anyway, our middle-aged pilot immediately gets into a firefight with a mysterious pilot in a similar craft before disappearing into a wormhole. Flashing back to 2022, 12-year-old Adam Reed is beat up by bullies, Ray and Chuck, at school, and his single mom, Ellie, comes to take him home. He's suspended for "fighting" -- again. Ellie complains that she's forced to take too much time off from work and Adam in turn complains that she doesn't understand him like his dad, Lewis, would. After mom heads out on a date with some guy name Derek, Adam and his dog are alerted by a noise in the garage. When they investigate, they discover the pilot from the future and -- wouldn't you know -- the dog takes an immediate liking to him. Now I'm getting Iron Man 3 vibes. Not as bad as Green Lantern but still sh*t. After a chat, Adam realizes that the pilot is his future self and we viewers realize that he has Deadpool's exact personality. Older Adam had intended to travel to 2018 in his -- time jet. Because he was shot and the -- time jet -- is coded to his DNA, for some reason, he can't gain entry to the cockpit. But fortunately, young Adam can.
Adam 12 mentions multiverses -- of course -- and namechecks Back to the Future's Biff -- of course. When mom gets home, Adam 12's rude to her date while Adampool gazes wistfully at her from the garage. Framed pictures around the house reveal that dad, who was killed in a car accident a year and a half earlier, is fellow Marvel alum, Mark Ruffalo. The next morning, the Adams bicker -- of course -- and Adampool chastises Adam 12 for not being nicer to Ellie. During a shopping trip, Adam 12's accosted by Ray and Chuck and Adampool coaches him on how to fight back. But....instead of following the advice, he runs away after getting hit in the face. Adampool then threatens the bullies, and back at the garage, Adam12 snoops through Van Wilder's sh*t and finds a picture of his wife, Laura, on his phone. Meanwhile, Adampool eavesdrops on Elektra (Jennifer Garner) at a bar and tries to console her about her relationship with Adam12 and the fact that they're both still grieving. She recognizes the jacket he's wearing -- it's Lewis'. Another jet appears, filled with black-clad troops, a pilot, Cristos, and girl-boss Mya Sorian. At the house, Adampool reveals that Tony Stark -- I mean Lewis -- invented time travel and that Mya was his partner until she stole the -- time tech -- officially named the Adam Project -- and murdered Laura. The death-troopers break into the house and after Adampool briefly fights them with his electro-staff, he's captured until he's rescued by Laura. The three of them haul ass in a pick-up, pursued by the jet.
And in keeping with the Back to the Future BS, some of the death-troopers use hoverboards -- I swear I'm not making this sh*t up. They get away to a lake cabin and make a Terminator 2 reference while running down some convoluted gibberish about time travel. Laura encourages Adampool to go back in time to 2018 in order to prevent time travel from being invented -- a plan which he opposes because it'll also prevent their relationship from forming. The Adams leave when the alarm's triggered and Colombiana (Zoey Saldana) blows up Cristos' SUV. She has a secret weapons cache and turns into Sarah Connor -- naturally. She kills a death-trooper during the firefight, the Adams head back in time in order to find Lewis for guidance as Mya shoots the sh*t out of Avatar. A dogfight between Hal Jordan and Cristo ensues in a canyon and Mya reminds Adampool that he only has one jump left because his ion blah blah blah is damaged. The battle heads above the clouds and Adampool escapes into a wormhole during a game of chicken. They later go to Professor Hulk's class in 2018 and Adam 12 promises Free Guy that he won't warn him about his impending car crash. Lewis immediately recognizes Adampool when he interrupts his lecture and when Adam 12 appears, he realizes that time travel's involved. We then get the lamest Hulk/Deadpool fight imaginable and even afterwards, they continue to argue about the ramifications of time travel. Elsewhere, Mya meets her younger self -- who's uncomfortable with the ethics of what they're doing -- again. And what they've been doing is cheating the stock market and greasing the wheels for the project to be completed.
After Bruce Banner leaves for home, Adam12 psychoanalyzes AP about his feelings toward his father. The next morning, Lewis decides to stay home with the family instead of going to work. He has a heart-to-heart with 13 Going on 30 before she reassures him that, "You've got time." The Adams go to initiate their plan, which involves blowing up an accelerator, before deathtroopers show up. But Adam 12, who's wearing a vest like Marty McFly's intervenes with AP's drone when he gets himself surrounded. When things go south, Dr. Banner saves him by crashing into their SUV with Ellie's. They argue -- again, but Banner has a better plan...stealing the hard drive containing the essential algorithm. They sneak into the lab while Adam 12's caught outside. When the Myas confront them, old Mya threatens to shoot Adam 12 if Adampool doesn't hand the drive over. Adam 12 causes old Mya to shoot a window, compromising the electro-magnetic shield. A brawl breaks out in the chaos, Cristos is killed, and a core meltdown begins, triggering a lockdown of the lab. Middle-aged Mya won't shoot, so old Mya grabs the gun in order to do it herself. Buuuut, the armor-piercing round contains a steel core, which the magnetism redirects toward middle-aged Mya, killing her and erasing AARP Mya from existence. The Reeds escape and when they get home, Bruce confesses that he realized that he'd die early as soon as he met the Hitman's Bodyguard. But he refuses to risk the timestream by preventing his death. He tells the Adams that he loves them, which breaks through the Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard's walls. The Fantastic 3 then play catch in the backyard.
And when Smart Hulk bends down to pick up a loose ball, the Adams have vanished because they returned to their times by the time he turns back around. In 2022, Adam 12 hugs Alias. And in the future, Adampool meets Gamora in a science class. She's a guest-lecturer who accidentally came to the wrong campus. So he volunteers to show her where she should be and says, "I've got time." F*%ksake.
Lately, requels that bank heavily on nostalgia have been all the rage in Hollywood. But whatta you do when you can't get your hands on some decades-old IP? Apparently, the next best thing is to rip off several movies from the same genre (including Marvel) and cast it to the brim with popular actors - especially those best-known for their Marvel roles. The irony is that this is exactly the type of goofy bullsh*it that would be mocked in a Deadpool film. The filmmakers even included Zeppelin's "Time" and Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" for f*%ksakes. I really don't wanna sh*t on this derivative, pun-filled remix of much, much better movies and the father/son dynamic is sorta moving. But don't waste your -- time -- on Back to the Judgement Endgame. Just watch The Terminator and call it a day.
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