It seems that people either loved Project Adam very much, or vehemently hated it, or fell somewhere in between. However, there seems to be one particular factor in the film that everyone can agree on: the odd use of CGI, especially in the scene involving Oscar nominee Catherine Keener.
The film stars Ryan Reynolds as the titular Adam, a fighter pilot from a 2050 dystopia who attempts to travel back in time to 2018 but crashes in 2022 and meets himself as a 12-year-old. Catherine Keener plays Maya Sorian, the villainous leader of a dystopian world who attempts to capture Adam and bring him back to the year 2050.
In the middle of the film, Maya goes back in time to visit her younger self. Instead of using makeup or hair to create a young Keener, the film uses CGI to project a flat, one-dimensional “deep fake” onto Keener’s face. Many were offended by this choice, and more viewers tweeted about the deep fake than Keener’s actual performance.
anti-aging/cg/deepfaked/whatever teen version of katherine keener in PROJECT ADAM damn uncanny valley pic.twitter.com/qoC1orywmUMarch 11, 2022
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The Adam Project is on Netflix and it’s a great movie. one twitter user said. “It also has one of the worst CGI anti-aging effects I’ve ever seen.”
“If somehow the aged CG of Project Adam’s Catherine Keener could be filmed with the baby in American Sniper, time could stop and the universe would fold on its own and collapse.” one more joked.
Single user said that he “doesn’t hate” the film, but that he would “rather forgive a slightly different actress than wobbly CGI”.
New York Times film critic Natalia Winkelman shared her review, calling it “a movie that loves to poke fun at Ryan Reynolds and turns Catherine Keener into a constipated sim.” Others seem to have supported this view.
Can’t get over how much they ruined the rejuvenation of Catherine Keener’s character in Project Adam, she looks like a sim 😂 #TheAdamProject pic.twitter.com/YyK22hfcrkMarch 11, 2022
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Writer James Marsh compared the CG to that of The Irishman, which features a young Robert De Niro on screen, stating that Project Adam “confirms” that little effort has been made by Netflix to improve its visuals. “For a film about future technologies,” he added. “His own effects work terribly.”
Single user commented on the difference between aging in films and how much more effort is usually put into the appearance of a female character: “Project Adam is not remarkable at all, except that the CGI they did for the younger version of Catherine Keener seems straight forward – insulting . They did all this to make a beautiful woman look a little younger, and all Ryan Reynolds did was shave off his beard?
“Don’t The Adam Project think I don’t know what Catherine Keener looked like 30 years ago?” someone asked. “Didn’t they consult, for example, Being John Malkovich before applying anti-aging CGI?”
Other went so far as to call Keener’s character rejuvenation “a disgusting deep fake nightmare”.
Just watched (and thoroughly enjoyed) The Adam Project. But heck, if Netflix can’t convincingly rejuvenate Catherine Keener with CGI, why the hell do you think BBC Worldwide can give you fake space pirates? pic.twitter.com/3uCsp7j8vFMarch 12, 2022
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Project Adam is currently streaming on Netflix. To learn more, check out our overview of how time travel works in The Adam Project.