The Adjustment Bureau

8/10 E.M.
7/10 C.E.

  This kinda of like Inception is one of those movies that will make you think and more importantly bring up more questions than answers, in other words my type of movie. You can easily see some of it's influences or similarities to other movies surprisingly being more similar to The Matrix than Inception. It also has strong ties to movies that bring up the God question and equation such as Bruce Almighty, throw in some predestined love like in movies such as Serendipity and what do you get... a good movie actually! The plot can easily be figured out just from the trailers however what makes the movie good and interesting are the aforementioned questions of life it brings up combined with how the movie explains this universe they create.

   Matt Damon and Emily Blunt have wonderful screen chemistry that helps bring alive the script that in the wrong hands and considering it's lackluster could have easily ended in disaster. You get the feel of a flirty witty banter that is a joy to watch and actually reminds me of that between 007 and Vesper in Casino Royale. Blunt does a great job and is charming at the right points and later nails the whole distressed damsel that has no idea what the heck is going on. Damon on the other hand although by no means bad doesn't fully nail the determination we have to see his circumstances conveying it more to the audience than the actual actor. This said he did good overall and as mentioned held up his end when interacting with Blunt.

  John Slattery does a wonderful job in his role as Richardson reminding me kind of a less uptight Tom Hanks from Catch Me If You Can. I do wonder though if between his role in this movie and his part in Mad Men if he will ever get out of a suit the poor guy. Terence Stamp at this point more often than not fills a look or type (in this case powerful determined antagonist.) in the films he partakes which he does well however at the same time makes his performances very unremarkable because you've pretty much seen it before in one way or another. The saying you've seen one you've seen them all from Singing in the Rain comes to mind when evaluating him in a film.Some of the musical selection especially early on in the film (for example the first song) seems odd ball to the movie however it quickly turns around and gets on track later helping to accent some of the films key scenes. By the end of the film audience members will more than likely leave happier than they expected and likely questioning some age old questions and how they want to control their fate or if indeed they can.