Now Playing: The Adjustment Bureau

On a spontaneous night, I went out and watched “The Adjustment Bureau” staring my favourite, Matt Damon and the elegant Emily Blunt. I went into this movie blind; I was not planning to see it and didn’t even know this movie existed ‘till earlier today. But once I found out this movie had Matt Damon, I packed my things, grabbed my Bourne glasses and set off. Did it live up to Damon’s stature or did it let me down?

I thought that the story was the cheesiest part of the movie and if you didn’t really catch the story from the trailers here is the basic breakdown. David Norris (Damon) has just lost the race to become the U.S. Senate of New York state; this is where he meets the woman of his life Elise Sellas (Blunt), a ballet dancer. As they start their relationship, as brisk as it is, the Fate police (my personal label for them) kick down the door and try with all their power to stop the two from being together. Norris later finds out that the Fate police’s plan and discovers something that should not be known by any human. The Fate police tell him that it is not in “The Plan” for the two to be together and enforces that the two are separated for life. Norris stops at no bounds to be with his true love, even if he has to change “The Plan” itself. And for whatever reasons you still don’t get it, it is a love story.

I really did not find the story that appealing, but what I thought was impressive was the execution of the story. Yes, you do see a hint of Bourne in this movie, but what can you do? This movie is a whole play on existentialism, which is the idea of the appearance of free will but still following a set path. As the film progresses, more and more pieces of the puzzle fit and a whole idea forms. And when I realized how the puzzle fits together, my mind was slightly blown. Not as much as inception but well enough for me to go, woah man that was … woah. I would like to see this movie again, because I feel I might get a bit more enjoyment trying to figure things out that I might have missed watching it the first time.

David and Ellise reading "The Plan"

Beside David Norris, I thought the characters were bland and nothing special. Emily Blunt was not spectacular, who needed to portray an edgy and inspirational character. Nor did she play well to complement Damon, so that was a letdown. The Fate police had a big role in the movie and the two main Fate police officers characters felt so nonexistent that I felt anyone could play it and it would not have made a difference. Now we come to Matt Damon and what am I supposed to say? I will give a bias response because I love him as an actor, and I found him to be amazing. Yes he gave a bit of a Bourne flair here and there but it did not saturate his character. He played his well-balanced but outgoing senator real well and I liked how he played him. And that Nu-Yo-ek accent was neat.

Though I do have to leave a little note about what really annoyed me through, the movie wasn’t really interesting all the way. Now this is more my fault, because love stories are kind of boring to me, so in the middle of the movie where they dive deeper into the relationship of Ellise and David, I did not care and made me want to fall asleep. But luckily it did not last too long and the last action sequence of the movie, building up to the finale was amazing and well done.

To summarize, I would like to recommend this movie to anyone that likes Damon or general Sci-Fi Thrillers. Yes there is a bit of a love story to overcome but it is bearable, and only dilutes this movies’ greatness only by a little bit. I wouldn’t say spend 10 bucks on it, but do see it when it comes on DVD and rent it.