. Today will explain to you a comedy, sci-fi film from 2022, titled The Adam Project.
Spoilers ahead! This article contains spoilers, Take Care!In the year 1950, a fighter pilot is in the process of stealing a jet while dealing with a bleeding wound on his waist. There are other jets chasing and shooting at him, so regardless of the jet AI’s warnings that his movements can be traced, he opens a wormhole to make a jump before getting caught. In 2022, asthmatic twelve-year-old Adam Reed is being beaten up by bullies again. This is something that happens often to him because of his big sassy mouth that easily offends anyone around him.
His recently-widowed mother Ellie Reed often has to leave work just to come to talk to the principal and get him out of trouble, although today, no matter what she says, she can’t prevent him from getting a suspension. Their relationship has been tense since his father died a year ago, and Ellie is trying her best to stay strong for her son, but it’s hard to cope when he keeps on responding to all her worries with more sass. That night, after Ellie leaves on her first date since her husband died, Adam’s playing videogames on a custom console with the company of his dog Hawking when suddenly, the power goes out. Something must’ve happened because Hawking begins barking and runs into the woods, so Adam has no choice but to follow – that is, after grabbing a flashlight and a bat just in case.
What he finds there is quite shocking: a bunch of trees are missing their tops and ashes are falling down, as something had breathed fire on them. When noises start coming from deep into the woods, Adam and Hawking run back to the house, but they can hear noises around here too. Hawking runs to the old shack they keep behind the house and is surprised to find the bleeding pilot there with Hawking comfortably resting on his lap. This guy has some weird questions for Adam, like his age and who his mom is dating tonight, he also has a big mouth that answers Adam’s sass with more sass.
After easily taking the bat from Adam and throwing it away, the pilot enters the main house to get some food and clean his wound. He refuses to answer any of Adam’s questions, saying it’s all classified, but he also shows some weird knowledge: he knows the trick to close the fridge, knows Adam’s name, birthday, and lots of other personal information, they share the same scar on their chin, and he’s also wearing the same watch that used to belong to his dad. The conclusion is obvious: this guy is also Adam, but from the future. As they go back into the woods, Big Adam explains he was trying to go to 2018, but for some reason he landed here.
He needs to go back as soon as possible, but his jet -which is what cut the treetops- won’t clear him to fly because of his injury. Since it is activated through a DNA scan, he asks Little Adam to press the button, which finally gets the jet working again. Big Adam programs it to start repairing itself, which will take some time since it’s only working at 50% capacity. Little Adam still has tons of questions though, like the possibility of the multiverse existing, but Big Adam explains that he’ll have this childhood memory of meeting himself once he returns to his own time and his memories reconcile.
Big Adam will spend the night on the couch in the shack, occasionally looking at a picture of his wife Laura. Meanwhile, Little Adam goes back into the house to welcome Ellie back and be a jerk to her date who gave her a ride. This upsets her mother greatly and goes outside for fresh air, giving Big Adam a chance to see her again through the window. The next day, after Ellie has left for work, Little Adam takes Big Adam to his parent’s room so he can wear some of their dad’s clothes to be able to go into town without getting attention.
Their dad died a year and a half ago, but Ellie still hasn’t been emotionally able to give his stuff away, so Big Adam puts on their dad’s favorite jacket and tells his younger self to treat their mom better or he’ll regret it in the future.
Afterward, they go to the drugstore, where Big Adam shops while Little Adams waits outside. That’s how he’s found by his bullies, who start beating him up until they’re interrupted by Big Adam. He isn’t here to break up the fight, he thinks this is important for Little Adam’s growth, but he does give him some tips on how to defend himself.
However, Little Adam isn’t fast enough and the bullies beat him again, so he runs away. Big Adam can’t stand seeing this and, still remembering how much he hated these bullies as a kid, he threatens them until they promise not to bother Little Adam again. Back in the house, Little Adam is going through Big Adam’s things and won’t let him come inside as punishment for not having helped him against the bullies. When he finds the picture of Laura, he demands to know who he is, so Big Adam explains that she’s his wife who isn’t around anymore before leaving in a rather upset mood.
He ends up in a bar where he finds Ellie sharing her sorrows with the bartender. Big Adam cuts in and tells her she shouldn’t pretend to be strong for her kid because that makes him believe it too – she should share her grief and go through it together. Before leaving, he also tells her Little Adam doesn’t hate her, he loves her more than he knows. This is a very peculiar phrasing because it’s the same way her son would always tell her he loves her – combined with the fact this stranger has the same jacket as her late husband makes Ellie very confused, but when goes after him to ask him about it, he’s already gone.
The following day, a new futuristic jet appears near the woods, piloted by Christos and his boss Maya Sorian, who has brought a team of robots to go after Adam. Meanwhile, Big Adam tells Little Adam about Laura while sharing a meal. They met at the academy when she entered his class by mistake, he offered to guide her to the right one and they quickly hit it off. A couple of years ago, she didn’t come back from a jump, and they told Adam her jet broke up on reentry, but this didn’t make any sense: she was the best pilot in the program and wrote the book on reentry.
Big Adam was going to 2018 because that’s where she went, but he doesn’t know why, since Maya changed the logs. Little Adam is surprised to hear this because Maya is his dad’s partner and she’s always been nice to him, but in the future, she takes over his dad’s technology and buys all the right people to gain control of the most important resource on Earth: time. Indeed, it was his dad that discovered time traveling with his “Adam Project”, although it was by accident. Big Adam is sure Maya got Laura killed.
Their conversation is interrupted when Hawking reacts to something they can’t hear or see. Big Adam gets a special sphere that he throws at the door, revealing the robot soldiers that are about to enter, then runs into the backyard to fight the rest of them with a lightsaber-like weapon. He quickly defeats them all, but as they’re about to leave, Maya shows up in her jet with Christos and more robots. Christos begins beating Big Adam up, only to be interrupted by someone suddenly shooting the jet: it’s Laura, who is armed and ready to save her husband.
Maya and Christos get away while the couple destroys the few remaining robots, then together with Little Adam, they get in Laura’s truck to escape. Maya’s jet appears again and starts shooting at them as she chases them, so Laura drives off the road and into the woods to lose her. Two robots go after them on hoverboards, but they trick one into crashing against a tree and destroy the other by cutting a tree and dropping it on it. They eventually reach a safe house on the beach where Laura has been hiding since 2018, waiting for Adam to find her, because she always knew he would, even if she isn’t happy at the fact he’s spoken to himself.
Then she tells them the whole story: Laura traveled to 2018 because she found a strange jump to that year on the logs. It turns out that’s the year Adam’s dad’s project had gone online, so future Maya went back to give her younger self some investment tips and gain control of the company. Their future is dark and dystopian because Maya has been playing them all along, and when she found out Laura knew the truth, she planted a bomb on her jet to get rid of her. Laura wants Adam to go back to 2018 and stop time traveling from being invented, but he refuses, since she can’t come because the jet only accepts his DNA, and removing time traveling means they’ll never meet at the academy.
The security system suddenly goes off, alerting them that Christos has found them. Laura sends the Adams away in her truck, promising they’ll meet again before going back to the house and grabbing all the weapons she’s been collecting through the years to buy them some time. While Laura begins a gunfight with Christos and watches Maya arrive in her jet, Big Adam convinces his hesitant younger self to come with him to 2018 by mentioning they’ll see their dad again. Little Adam accepts and uses his fingerprint to activate the jet, and together they fly out of there.
However, after shooting Laura, Christos and Maya see them and go after them, so Big Adam loses their trail by temporarily turning off the jet and dropping it inside a mountain cave. Once their enemy is distracted, they fly out and make the last jump the jet has left, effectively arriving in 2018. After making Little Adam promise he won’t tell their dad the details of his death not to mess with the timeline, Big Adam enters the college classroom where Louis Reed is finishing his class. After his students are gone, he sees Big Adam sitting at the back and immediately recognizes him as his son right before Little Adam runs to him to hug him.
They try to explain to Louis why they are here and why they need him, but Louis refuses to listen because he doesn’t want to mess with the timeline. Frustrated by this, Big Adam ends up punching him, but Louis punches him back before finally accepting to go with them to the motel they’re staying at and listening to the whole story. He’s shocked to hear Maya’s plans and how evil she becomes, but he still refuses to help because he doesn’t think time should be altered, then leaves after Big Adam tells him he should stop being a scientist and start being a father. Meanwhile, future Maya arrives in 2018 too and visits her younger self, who isn’t happy to see her.
She’s been doing all the things future Maya requested her to, but it’s all very unethical and is causing damage to the environment. But future Maya convinces her to help her again when she reminds her they’ve always been lonely workaholics and this company is their family legacy that they can’t let the government put their hands on, otherwise all their sacrifice and loneliness would’ve been for nothing. Back in the motel, Little Adam tells Big Adam that he doesn’t really hate their dad, he made himself hate him because hate is easier to deal with than sadness and grief. Louis worked a lot, yes, but he also stayed up when he came home and played catch with Adam no matter how tired he was.
This gives Big Adam a lot to think about. The next morning, Louis stays at home instead of going to work to spend some time with an even younger Adam and puppy Hawking. Ellie is surprised by hearing how worried he is about Adam’s childhood and promises him that he’s a good dad, even if he can’t always be there for them. When Ellie tells him he has plenty of time, that leaves him thinking as well.
The Adams go to Maya’s company building with the intention of blowing up the prototype time machine and find it strange that there aren’t any workers around. This is because Maya has sent them away and filled the place with robots, which Big Adam quickly proceeds to fight with his lightsaber-like weapon while Little Adam offers backup from afar with a drone. Little Adam also shoots one of the incoming cars, but he misses the other one, which almost hits Big Adam, only to get saved by Louis. After crashing the enemy car with his own, Louis explains that he’s changed his mind and he wants to help: blowing up the machine is pointless because Maya can build another one, what they need to find and destroy is the hard drive with all the equations and designs he’s developed.
While Little Adam stays outside watching over the perimeter unaware of the jet behind him, Big Adam and Louis enter the time machine room and remove the hard drive panel. Before they can do anything with it though, the two Mayas arrive with a bunch of robots and Christos, who is holding Little Adam at gunpoint. When asked to hand in the drive in exchange for his own younger life, Big Adam hesitates, which angers Louis and Little Adam since life shouldn’t be negotiated with. Little Adam is so furious that he pushes Christos’ gun and makes him shoot the machine, causing the electromagnetic seal to break.
Now all the metal objects in the room are being sucked by it, including the guns and the robots, one of which grabs Little Adam with him and gets them stuck in the machine. While Louis tries to deactivate the system, Christos fights Big Adam over the drive, and Little Adam manages to free himself by punching the robot that is holding him with the glove he used to control the drone. He finds the lightsaber-like weapon on the floor and tries to use it to help his older self, but he’s still a kid so Christos easily pushes him away. Then he holds Big Adam against the ground, trying to choke him, but Adam notices the door is about to get off its hinges, so he pushes up Christos enough for the door to hit him as it flies by, sucked in by the machine.
Louis can’t shut off the system, so they need to leave before everything explodes. Maya tries to stop him using a gun made from a futuristic material that isn’t attracted by magnets however, its bullets are. So when she tries to shoot Louis, the bullet is sucked in by the machine too and hits younger Maya in the way, killing her and causing older Maya to disappear. The Adams and Louis leave the building right before the machine blows up, but the Adams don’t disappear quite yet because thirty years of time take a while to fix themselves up.
They go back to their house and Louis admits he’s already guessed he’ll die soon, but he doesn’t want to know when or how. After they all hug and tell each other “I love you”, they spend their last moment together playing catch in the backyard until the Adams disappear. Back in 2022, Adam makes sure to give his mom a tight hug and tell her he loves her. In the future, Laura enters the wrong college class and gets to meet Adam all over again.
