Early on my wife said this reminded her of E.T. It reminded me of all those ‘80s movies – Goonies, Back to the Future, Terminator, and any of the Disney sci-fi movies you have on an old VHS tape, that starred actors like Kurt Russell or Dennis Quaid. And when you’re watching a father and son play catch, you’ll think of Field of Dreams, with Harry Chapin playing in the background.
I just adored this movie. The one-liners were sharp, and a few of the scenes packed such an emotional punch, I was blubbering on the couch. Now that being said, I am getting tired of Ryan Reynolds playing these same snarky characters (my wife said, “I’ll never get tired of Ryan Reynolds, doing anything.”)
So, director Shawn Levy of the funny Free Guy, is giving us this funny take on a time travel story with his same lead actor. You can’t fault him there.
Adam Reed (Ryan Reynolds as the older version, and the adorable Walker Scobell as the kid version) is a boy who is bullied at school. He’s dealing with the death of his dad (Mark Ruffalo), and pulls out an inhaler right after he’s pummeled by mean classmates. And just like when Iron Man shows up in that kid’s garage, the older version of Adam shows up with bullet wounds, and a crazy story about the future. Of course, they have to hide him from mom (Jennnifer Garner), as he tries to repair his futuristic jet in the forest nearby.
When the dog is happy to see the older version of Adam, my wife had to pepper me with questions about whether the dog would recognize his smell and…oh boy. I could just tell it wouldn’t be long until she started talking about the “space-time continuum”.
Maya Sorian (Catherine Keener) has let her greed take over as she runs the company making time travel possible. She’s not the most interesting villain you’ve seen on screen. And the CGI isn’t the best, but they’re both serviceable.
Sorian apparently killed Adam’s wife Laura (Zoe Saldana), when she went back in time and discovered some unscrupulous things Sorian did. Talk about insider trading! This reminded me of some of the concepts in the low-key (but interesting) movie from last year – Needle in a Timestack (Leslie Odom Jr., Orlando Bloom, Cynthia Erivo).
ALL time travel movies have flaws in the logic, so the ones here didn’t bother me much. There were also just a handful of expositional conversations to give us the logic behind the science. It’s really the family elements that drive this story which deals with the grief of losing a loved one, and a single parent trying to raise a kid with a smart mouth. And the reason why characters act the way they do, or as is the case with the older Adam, turn out to be the adults they are.
Just as I’m getting to the point of not wanting to see Reynolds play another snarky character, I thought I was tired of Garner playing mom characters. But the things she does in this movie are refreshing. She’s actually given some things to do, instead of just acting like a confused character who isn’t sure what’s going on.
I’ve also gotten tired of these types of movies going with cool, classic rock needledrops. But it’s hard to fault a movie that starts with the Spencer Davis Group’s “Gimme Some Lovin” and plays Boston during a fight scene, Pete Townsend’s “Let My Love Open the Door” (although this is the third movie I’ve seen that’s used that song); and the first Zeppelin song off their first album – Good Times, Bad Times. This movie is filled with mostly good times, so it gets 3 ½ stars out of 5, and you can catch it now on Netflix.