The fast-talking, almost constant banter from Reynolds can become a bit much at times, but there are plenty of exhilarating action scenes to keep the film moving along at a nice clip. And although it is mostly family-friendly, it’s rated PG-13, so there is some cursing and it does get more serious and a little sentimental part way through. There is excellent support from Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Garner as Adam’s parents. They don’t capture the chemistry they had in 13 Going on 30, but they too are their usual appealing selves. Netflix has produced some excellent dramas recently—The Irishman, Uncut Gems, and Roma among others come to mind—but their blockbuster action films have not yet been able to equal the success of those dramas. Nonetheless, The Adam Project is an amusing diversion even if it fails to break any new ground. 

Contributing to the enjoyment is how wonderful it looks on a high-quality display. There are a few instances where the Dolby Vision picture streamed from Netflix broke up slightly, such as scenes with explosions and a lot of smoke and fire filling the screen, but these were infrequent. Much of the film takes place during overcast days or at night, but the lighting always remained consistent and natural with extremely dark black shadows and excellent HDR details. For instance, as the young Adam walks through a forest at night, objects directly in the beam of his flashlight are perfectly illuminated, while reflected light reveals a lot of detail in faces and background objects. So while the scene is very dark overall, there are still plenty of visual cues such as the dampness of the glistening undergrowth. Then when he stumbles upon the time jet’s crash site, the glowing embers gently falling from the tree tops really pop against the dimly lit, starry sky.  

Many of the scenes exhibit a stylized blue-green tinge, and the picture has a somewhat soft character, giving the movie an almost film-like quality as opposed to the hyper-detailed look of a lot of films shot on digital. While the lighting is extremely natural and captures the languid beauty of cloudy skies and misty outdoor locations shot in the Pacific Northwest, the CGI time-jet scenes can be a little over the top and look cartoonish, although that suits the light-hearted nature of the film.

The sound design is also first-rate and presented in a satisfying and enveloping manner in Dolby Atmos with aggressively mixed action sequences often accompanied by great classic rock songs. This movie might not elicit the urge to create a mixtape as with Guardians of the Galaxy and its memorable soundtrack, but I couldn’t help but bob my head and tap my toes as Steve Winwood belted out the vocals from “Gimme Some Lovin’” during the time-jet dogfighting scenes. The final fight scene features hand-to-hand combat choreographed to Boston’s “Foreplay/Long Time” and judicious use of the surround and height channels, so the constant action is all around with some very deep bass effects to make your audio system really rumble. 

I’m really looking forward to the more adult, upcoming R-rated collaboration between Levy and Reynolds in Deadpool 3. In the meantime, the extremely active Dolby Atmos surround mix and excellent visuals delivered in Dolby Vision, help make The Adam Project an entertaining movie to enjoy with the family.