It's 2050. Adam Reed is 40 years old and is fleeing in a stolen time ship with a bullet through his abdomen and a much larger ship in hot pursuit.

It's 2022. Adam Reed is 12 years old, getting beaten up by school bullies, living with his widowed mom and resenting the loss of his father in a car accident more than a year before.

Their lives are going to collide.

The elder Reed (Ryan Reynolds) is a time pilot who's trying to go back to 2018 to right a wrong committed by another time traveler that, without giving away too much of the plot, involves his dead wife (also a time pilot, whose ship burned up on her last reentry) and his late father. He misses his mark, however, and ends up instead four years too late, lying wounded in his former self's garage. That's where the younger Reed (Walker Scobell) finds him.

But sinister time cops are after him, and his boss from the future, Maya Sorian (Catherine Keener), wants to stop him from undoing whatever it is -- he doesn't know the specifics -- that she did in the past. And, despite his misgivings, he's going to need his younger self's help to accomplish it.

The Adam Project, named for the research through which the late Louis Reed (Mark Ruffalo) discovered the mechanics of time travel, is filled to the brim with Reynolds' trademark humor.

The movie is funny, sometimes terrifically funny, with some cracking good dialogue between Reeds. But it's by no means just a comedy. At its heart, The Adam Project is a serious science fiction story about the ramifications of time travel ... similar in some ways to The Terminator.

But The Adam Project never loses its sense of fun, all while juggling the more dramatic, future-altering plot points. It's even a little heartbreaking at times, particularly for a son who has lost his father.

Reynolds does his usual sterling job in the role, playing a variation of, you know, Ryan Reynolds. And Scobell is fantastic, crossing verbal swords with his older self. The repartee between them is just wonderful.

A special mention goes out to Ruffalo, who provides a very compassionate, somewhat tragic side to the story when the Reeds finally get back to 2018. Shout out, too, to Jennifer Garner, who is the younger Reed's long-suffering mother Ellie, who has the thankless task of parenting a pre-teen who nurses his own wounded emotions but never gives thought to hers.

This is a movie with humor and heart. I really liked it. A lot.