THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU (2011)

Time to adjust some bureaus...

What is the Adjustment Bureau? Well, if I told you I would have to kill you. Then again, if I don't tell you something, this wouldn't be much of a review, would it? But... I don't want to give away too much or else it's going to warrant a spoiler warning and that's not really my style. Alright, well here's what I'm going to say. I appreciate you coming here (as I'm sure you and all your friends do daily), but this is one movie I'm going to tell you to see first before reading my (or anybody else's) review. If you've seen the movie or don't really care to see the movie then read ahead. Like I said, there won't be any spoilers, per say, but when it comes to a movie like The Adjustment Bureau, it's hard to determine what people really consider a spoiler these days. Moving on...

Matt Damon stars as savvy politician David Norris in his second kinda-weird movie recently - if you include last year's Hereafter, that is. Norris is up for the Senator of New York and he's most likely going to lose. While he's preparing his closing speech, he runs into Elise Sellas played by Emily Blunt. She inspires him to give the speech of his life and then takes off never to be seen again - at least that's the way the Adjustment Bureau would like it. It isn't longer than a month later when Norris gets on a bus and as fate would have it, (keyword: fate) he runs into Elise once more - only to be confronted by the Adjustment Bureau - not moments after he secures Elise's name and number. So, who are the strange men in fedoras? They are those that control your destiny. What purpose they serve and who they work for is the secret you'll wait the full 105 minutes to uncover. Either way, Norris wants to be with Elise (badly) and they wont let him - so the game is on.

I think the most prominent thing about The Adjustment Bureau is that it's a good, solid movie. Is it a movie that will change your life - as another review I read would tend to suggest? No. While I think some may find their lives changed slightly once the credits roll, it'll be dependant on where you are in your life at the time - as is the case with the majority of films. For most though, it may fall a bit short. I, personally, left the theatre no more inspired than when I had walked in. Bureau doesn't really introduce any idea we haven't seen before, though - nor does it bring about a new way to look at said idea. It's a retread at most of something that was perhaps more revolutionary back in 1954, when the original short story was written by Philip K. Dick. Dick, by the way, was also responsible for the short stories for which movies like Blade Runner and Minority Report were based off of.

The Adjustment Bureau gets an open door. The pace of the film is good, the action well done and the acting top notch - we get a nice balance of romance as well. While I enjoyed it, I doubt the film will pick up any pace nor do I think it will be remembered years from now as a classic - that happens sometimes to good movies. But in this day and age, with new franchises and movies being thrown at us every month and in 3D, perhaps just being remembered as a good movie (period) isn't the worst fate, after all.

*Stills courtesy of Universal Pictures