Not content with being the most fun time travel movie since 'Back to the Future,' 'The Adam Project' sports four incredible songs on its soundtrack

We are lucky to be living through a golden age for movie soundtracks assembled by directors who are apparently as excited about sharing some gems from their record collections as they are about the movies they are making. From Quentin Tarantino’s unbroken run of awesome compilations to accompany his films stretching all the way back to the iconic “Little Green Bag” scene in Reservoir Dogs, to Edgar Wright’s meticulously choreographed movement and editing to his favorite tunes, and of course not forgetting the Guardians of the Galaxy. Awesome Mixes, movie geeks with a love of retro rock have never had it better. This month’s Netflix time travel comedy adventure The Adam Project is the latest in this lineage, boasting a slim but supreme collection of tunes that perfectly compliment the most fast-paced, hilarious, and downright fun Sci-Fi flick since, well, the last time Ryan Reynolds and director Shawn Levy got together in 2021’s Free Guy. Let’s have a look at the appropriately decade-spanning tracks underpinning this relentlessly entertaining movie.

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Levy sets out his stall from the outset, opening the film with this 1966 rock classic playing over a sea of stars. Borrowing more than a little from Motown with the simple, catchy bass riff and raucous R ‘n’ B vocals, this catchy foot-tapper is a nod to the audience that they should strap in for an absolute blast. “Time Travel Exists. You Just Don’t Know It Yet”, we are told, before we catch our first sight of a futuristic jet roaring into space as the full band kicks in, Hammond organ and all.

Pairing a nearly sixty-year-old pop hit with a futuristic space battle deftly sets the tone whilst also establishing the theme of artifacts out of time. An exhilarating spaceship chase, time travel wormholes, Ryan Reynolds’ trademark quips, and an absolute monster of a sixties rock song in the first three minutes of a movie? What more could you possibly ask for?

Skipping to the climactic action scene, Adam (Reynolds) has to face off against Christos (Alex Mallari Jr) amidst the magnetized chaos of the overloaded particle accelerator. Rob Simonsen’s functional orchestral score gives way to the rumble of an electric organ. Understandably, the following few minutes of noodling guitar riffage has been edited out to quell some of Boston’s more prog-rock tendencies, arriving at the acoustic guitar riff from around the midpoint of the double-barreled stadium-rock behemoth in time for the action to go into haywire mode.

The fight is just as well-executed and riveting as the earlier clash in Adam’s childhood garden and the song is soon in absolute seventies-guitar-hero wig-out mode. It is a shame some of the most ludicrous showing off from the first half of this 7:47 minutes of epic bombast could not have been accommodated, but you can always head over to your music streaming service of choice and listen to it for yourself. In fact, the whole album is overflowing with brilliant tracks. Also, whilst the action is as visceral and exciting as ever, the finished product cannot help but pale in comparison to the first fight scene for reasons we will come to shortly - here’s a clue: Led Zeppelin.

Issued as standard to any director setting out to make a romantic comedy, “Let My Love Open the Door” is a song that most will recognize without necessarily realizing it is by The Who guitar god and songwriting legend, because it sounds nothing like his other output. Erring more in the direction of a Lindsay Buckingham solo single, or maybe something by George Harrison in his Jeff Lynne-produced years, it is a slab of pure eighties joy so uplifting it is no surprise it frequently arrives over ending credits to leave audiences with a skip in their steps.

It first appears in The Adam Project as Reynolds listens to one of his father’s records. “This was my dad’s favorite song,” says the 2022 child version of Adam (in a charming breakout performance from Walker Scobell), subtly tying the music to the story in a Guardians of the Galaxy fashion. Adding yet another tone to the movie's varied palette, the importance of family and letting them know what they mean to you whilst you have the chance is explored through both the passing of Adam's father (Mark Ruffalo) and the result this has had on his mother (Jennifer Garner). With hints of Flight of the Navigator (1986) and early eighties Spielbergian suburbia given edge by Reynolds and Scobell’s witty exchanges, the addition of the sincere, big warm hug of “Let My Love Open the Door” is a stroke of genius. The song appears again over the closing credits, tying the whole thing up in a pretty bow. In any other film “Let My Love Open the Door” would almost always be the best song. But it must be stressed that this film has an action sequence set to Led Zeppelin.

The goofy, sweet first act is replaced by a gear-shift into outright action-adventure with the introduction in quick succession of Power Rangers-looking stormtroopers, Catherine Keener as big bad Maya Sorian and her henchman Christos, and finally perennial badass Zoe Saldana’s Laura Reed joining the fight to the thrashing intro of “Good Times/Bad Times”. Track one on Led Zeppelin’s eponymous 1969 debut album sets the blueprint for their hard rock sound which they perfected over the course of the following decade: Jimmy Page’s blistering, gritty riffs, John Paul Jones’ complex bass lines, John Bonham’s rapid-fire bass drum and hard-hitting style driving the track, and Robert Plant’s soulful, bluesy vocals sealing the deal. The only way the track could be improved is by having Adam and Laura vaporize a bunch of armored goons with laser guns, leaving multicolored clouds in their wake, whilst Adam wields the coolest weapon since Darth Maul’s double bladed lightsaber, some kind of telescopic sword-come-electromagnet that sends baddies flying through windows and pole-vaults him around the scene.

Hilariously, Adam attempts to stage a romantic reunion amidst the chaos, with a determined Laura pushing him aside in order to blast another subordinate into smithereens. There is a lot going on in this fleeting but spectacular sequence. By any metric this is an outstanding action scene - the whole exhilarating segment leaves you breathless - but it’s the ingenious use of “Good Times/Bad Times” which pushes it into instant classic territory, underlining the quick pace of the action and editing and practically screaming at the audience, “Let’s have a good time!” When the track ends in a trail of reverb, Levy utilizes the contrasting silence to finally give Adam and Laura their reunion moment, before one last Sorian stooge unwisely shows their face and promptly has it blown clean off, leaving Young Adam staring through the dispersing cloud of orange dust. “That was awesome!” he says. Damn right it was!

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