There is comfort in familiarity. Yet we tend to look down upon things that bring us unencumbered simplicity, especially when we view them through a morose, intellectual lens. Sometimes the heart wants what the heart wants – an easy, breezy popcorn entertainer to curl up to, one that will throw no surprises and bring up our dopamine and serotonin levels. And with the latest Netflix hit, The Adam Project, Ryan Reynolds, arguably the reigning king of popcorn films, does just that for us.
Life is complicated as it is. Entertainment does not always need to be. Some days we just need to watch something that doesn't reflect our pain or suffering or make us cry in resonance. Cinema can serve many purposes. It can shine light on the modern malaises that plague society, hold up a mirror to our worst flaws, or simply therapise us like only a warm hug can on a cold, cold day. We may crash the servers of OTT platforms to catch series finales of big hits like Game of Thrones, but we will still go back to reading Harry Potter and watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S for the hundredth time at the end of a very tiring day. Of course, for some, the genres we fall back on will differ. Ultimately reaching out for familiar faces and familiar spaces is like a habit, a ritual we do on repeat to self-soothe. Hollywood knows that. Ryan Reynolds and Shawn Levy (director of The Adam Project) know that. And Netflix knows that.
The Adam Project: All the Familiar Tropes
A popcorn flick, by its very definition, is light and fun. The viewers are not supposed to look for anything serious or dramatic, heavy messages, or even intellectual depth in such films. Most of Reynolds’ filmography can comfortably fit into this genre.
Director of classic popcorn comedies like Cheaper by the Dozen and Night at the Museum Shawn Levy teamed up with Ryan Reynolds for The Adam Project after the success of the 2021 action-comedy film Free Guy. Despite both these films being commercial hits, the latter received similar criticism as the Netflix hit for being full of common tropes. But when done well, even formulaic storytelling can work wonders!
In The Adam Project, a lightsaber-wielding Adam (played by Reynolds) time travels to 2022 to save his significant other Laura Shane (played by Zoe Saldana) – and by extension, the world. Adam has to work with his 12-year-old asthmatic self and deceased father, Louis Reed (played by Mark Ruffalo), in order to defeat corrupt billionaire Maya Sorian (Catherine Keener) from ruining the future for everyone.
There is nothing in this film that you haven’t seen before. There isn’t a line of dialogue, a poignant moment, or even an emotional note that has not been exploited in cinema before. Even the science behind the time travel in this film relies on ideas we have seen in sci-fi films and TV shows that have preceded it. We get what we are promised. A hero who goes through great personal loss and still emerges victorious in the end. We know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. We even know what the punchlines to all the jokes are.
As usual, for any doomsday Hollywood film, the location of all these doomsday activities in The Adam Project are also located in the US of A. Not to mention that more than half the main cast belong to some of the biggest MCU hits of the past decade, which posits us in a further familiar territory, a state of mind we are well-acquainted with. All these actors are playing characters whose shades we already recognise well.
The fact that Reynolds tends to play similar characters in all his big hits is also part of the formula that keeps adapting itself to current times without really changing its very core. In his real as well as reel-life, Reynolds is a witty guy, full of perfectly timed wisecracks. He can be adequately wholesome (Definitely, Maybe) or boundlessly inappropriate (Deadpool) – but he will always come through to save the day and get the woman/happy ending of his dreams. At the end of the day, all will be well.
Why We Keep Going Back
Danish philosopher Kierkegaard once said, “That which is repeated has been, otherwise it could not be repeated, but the very fact that it has been makes the repetition into something new.” And filmmaker Jim Jarmusch expanded on that sentiment when he said, “Nothing is original. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from -- it’s where you take them to.”
While neither were speaking up in favour of big production houses churning out clichéd films with hackneyed plots that rake in millions at the box office, their statements do echo our yearning to find inspiration in the well-known, the ordinary, the habitual. Popcorn films are the ultimate comfort food for our frayed minds bogged down by the tragedies of our reality. By the very act of repetition, Ryan Reynolds has arguably become the reigning king of popcorn flicks in Hollywood (the only one close to his success being his Red Notice co-star Dwayne Johnson), and The Adam Project further solidifies just that.