After accidentally crash-landing in 2022, time-traveling fighter pilot Adam Reed teams up with his 12-year-old self for a mission to save the future.
Adam Reed, age 12 and still grieving his father's sudden death the year before, walks into his garage one night to find a wounded pilot hiding there. This mysterious pilot turns out to be the older version of himself from the future, where time travel is in its infancy. He has risked everything to come back in time on a secret mission. Together they must embark on an adventure into the past to find their father, set things right, and save the world. As the three work together, both young and grown Adam come to terms with the loss of their father and have a chance to heal the wounds that have shaped them. Adding to the challenge of the mission, the two Adams discover that they really don't like each other much, and if they are to save the world, first they need to figure out how to get along.
In 2050, a time-traveling pilot fights another jet and is wounded, and he jumps to 2022. In 2022, the twelve-year-old boy Adam Reed lives with his mother Ellie and misses his beloved father, the scientist Louis Reed, who has recently died. While his mother is working, Adam finds the pilot in the garage and soon he learns that the pilot is himself in 2050. Further, he intended to jump to 2018 to save his wife, Laura, who apparently died while investigating a confidential subject. The old Adam needs Adam to use his DNA to activate his jet plane since he is wounded, but is located by his enemies, Maya Sorian and Christos. Out of the blue, they are saved by Laura, and flee to a house by the sea. She tells them that they must return to 2018 to meet Louis Reed and destroy his experimental time machine since Maya is returning to 2018 to provide information to herself to dominate the world in the future. The problem is that Maya Sorian is Louis' sponsor, partner and friend, and they have to convince him that she is a menace to the world.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
In a dystopian 2050, fighter pilot Adam Reed (Ryan Reynolds) steals his time jet and escapes through time on a rescue mission to 2018. However, he accidentally crash-lands in 2022 instead where Adam meets his 12-year-old self (Walker Scobell) who is struggling with the recent death of their father Louis (Mark Ruffalo) (Adam's father and a brilliant quantum physicist who wrote the algorithm necessary for controlled time travel) in a car accident.Ellie Reed (Jennifer Garner), Adam's mother is alive in 2022. Adam12 gets bullied at school and when he stands up to them, he is suspended for instigating a fight. Ellie was on a date the night when Adam crash landed into 2022. Adam reveals to Adam12, that he is the same guy from the future.
Adam reluctantly enlists his younger self's help to repair his jet (The future tech is coded to the user's DNA. Since Adam is injured, the jet wont clear him to fly or repair it because all his vitals are haywire). Adam sets the jet on self repair mode and tucks in for the night in the garage. The next day Ellie leaves for work. Adam tells Adam12 that he treats his mother badly and regrets it for the rest of his life. They go to a drug store to get supplies. Adam tries to get Adam12 to stand up to the bullies, but Adam12 gets beaten down again. Finally Adam takes on the bully and tells him to Adam12 alone.Adam meets Ellie at a bar (as a stranger eves-dropping on her conversation with the bartender) and tells her that she is doing nothing wrong with Adam12. He advises her to be more vulnerable and let Adam12 know that she is also hurting from the death of her husband.Adam reveals that he is looking for his wife, Laura (Zoe Saldaña), who was supposedly killed in a plane crash while on a time travel mission to 2018. They changed the jump logs and Adam never knew what she was chasing in 2018.
Adam is being chased by Maya Sorian (Catherine Keener), the leader of the dystopian world and her lieutenant Christos (Alex Mallari Jr.) who attempt to apprehend Adam in 2022 and take him back to 2050. In 2018, Maya was working for Louis. As Maya and Christos attack Adam, The Adams are rescued by Laura who reveals that she had escaped an assassination attempt on her (after she analyzed the jump logs and saw an entry of a plane coming back from 2018, when nobody ever flew to 2018) and was left stranded in the past (for the last 4 yrs). Laura had learned that Sorian had traveled back in time and altered the past in order to give herself control of time travel and the future.Nov 2018 was when Louis developed the Magnetic particle accelerator, the first step towards time travel.
Laura urges Adam to travel back to 2018 and destroy time travel, which was created by his father Louis, in order to set things right and save the future. Adam is afraid that if changes the past, Adam and Laura may never meet in the future.Sorian attacks and Laura sacrifices herself so that the two Adams can escape. Chased by Sorian and with only enough power left for one time jump, Adam and his younger self jump back to 2018.
In 2018, the two Adams attempt to enlist Louis' help, but he refuses out of concern for the scientific impact on the time-stream. Adam argues that Maya already impacted the time-stream and took control of the future of human destiny. When Louis refuse to relent, Adam tells him to care for his son, rather than caring for the universe all the time.Meanwhile Future Sorian travels to 2018 and meets her younger self. She had traveled to 2018 before to alter the time stream in cahoots with her younger self. Future Sorian reveals that Adam from the future is also in 2018 and is determined to eradicating the technology that enables time travel.
Adam12 confronts his future self about his bitterness and anger and realizes that the source of it is his lingering pain over their father's death & nothing else. As the two launch an attack to destroy Louis' particle accelerator, Louis changes his mind and joins the mission, having them instead retrieve the hard drive containing the only copy of his algorithm that enables time travel (by stabilizing the wormholes).Adam and Louis go down to the basement where the accelerator is housed, while Adam12 guards the perimeter with drones. Adam12 is captured by Sorian from the future. She brings Adam12 to the basement to negotiate with Adam and Louis.
A battle erupts between the Adams, Louis, Sorian, her younger self, Sorian's soldiers and Christos, resulting in the particle accelerator overloading. Sorian attempts to shoot Louis with an armor-piercing bullet, but the magnetic field of the accelerator instead diverts the round, causing it to kill the younger Sorian, erasing the future Sorian from existence as the Reeds flee.
With time travel destroyed and the future set right, Louis chooses not to learn of his own fate and enjoys a game of catch with both versions of his son before the Adams are returned to their own times. In 2022, Adam12 lets go of his bitterness and anger and reconciles with his mother whom he has been distant with ever since Louis' death.Years later, a much happier adult Adam meets Laura for the first time in a situation mirroring their first meeting in the original time-line.
