Review of The Adjustment Bureau (2011) by Tibor B — 24 Apr 2013

A bit of a poor man's Matrix slash Inception slash 40s supernatural romance thriller, in which Matt Damon is a senate candidate who discovers a sinister bureaucracy that seem to be assigned to control human fates to serve a greater plan.

This is tested when he falls for Elise, a hip young dancer who after a flirty bathroom meet-cute, inspires him to making an unscripted heart on sleeve speech which proves a huge public hit. Damon and Blunt have decent chemistry that goes a long way to endearing an audience to take the pretty ridiculous narrative with a generous pinch of salt.

Actors like Slattery and Stamp also give the Bureau a bit of dramatic weight. It's decent light and breezy entertainment, but doesn't have the enigmatic, mysterious qualities that make other examples of this type of film so engrossing, and open to discussion and interpretation.

It takes its conceit too literally and attempts to explain it too thoroughly when a dose of the bizarre and unexplained can be far more effective.