Well Deserved Praise

Disturbing yet enthralling

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

The Adjustment Bureau has a very interesting idea, but only an average execution. The visual effects are well-done and both Matt Damon and Emily Blunt give believable performances, but the film as a whole has a bland feeling to it. It's good, it's just not great.

The affair between a politician and a contemporary dancer is affected by mysterious forces keeping the lovers apart. The Adjustment Bureau is unlike most romantic films it mixed well romance and sci-fi in a well written way, Emily Blunt and Matt Damon are excellent and their chemistry feels realistic, the special effects and the overall plot of the movie is very interesting and the ending was so well done. Overall something new, something original in a way and a love story about a man and a woman who would do everything to stay together. (10/10)

You know how it is. When someone tragically dies, you are supposed to think that it was God's will and we do not understand his plans. Or if you like, we can't understand the big picture, but there is a meaning behind all the suffering. In the Adjustment Bureau, the protagonist has the courage to ask if it is morally acceptable to make people suffer against their will, if it is your power not to do so. Shouldn't the plan be better? This is a pretty daring question in a theological context and would easily have led the questioner to lose his life in the past. Some would call it blasphemy even today. The short stories Philip K. Dick wrote back in the 1950's are a bit dated by now but they still inspire the best in American film making just as his novels of the 1960's do. The superior being who adjusts things on the ground to comply to his plans is called the Old Man in the original story, in the film the title is more bureaucratic, so it 's not clear if we are dealing with God, an AI or some other entity. It's your call. Einstein said that God does not play dice. But in the story and the film he certainly does so as his adjustment agents keep on tweaking the odds to keep his plan going. The first time around I didn't really like the film as I was having a hard time deciding if it was a sci-fi or a religious film or simply a romantic comedy with an unusual amount of action. So I decided to give it a second chance and the film began to make much more sense. Besides asking the viewer a lot of very difficult questions the film also incorporates a mighty romance. Normally I do not go for the romantic comedy genre, but Matt Damon and Emily Blunt act the parts in a Casablanca kind of manner. It's hard to define but if you have seen the film you already know what I mean. I never knew Matt Damon could be so intense. The scene where the couple accidentally meet in a men's rest room is absolutely thrilling to watch. As far as adaptations of Philip K. Dicks groundbreaking work go, the Adjustment Bureau has to be one of the most imaginative.

How telling! I picked up this movie on VOD yesterday, thinking I had skipped it when it was released and actually I had gone to watch it but had only the faintest recollection.Obviously the movie was not very good. Worse than that, there was absolutely nothing interesting and new in it. Granted the romance is okay, but it is only the starting point. The whole premise, that Adjustment Bureau is a failure. Basically it is about dead-serious Men in Black, so you've got a pompous metaphysical backdrop that bogs down the entire movie (obviously since it is the premise from Philip K. Dick's short story). This is a similar mistake as the one they made with Dark City: this is not sci-fi enough or fantasy enough.Seriously who thought there was room for a movie, let alone a good one, about a police force with absolute power on the course of our lives? The moment the hero is told about this the whole story falls flat because it is a goddamn gigantic hole that they would let him know without resetting him the minute after, and even if they thought he was worth the dare it would take sloppiness over sloppiness from the AAA+ uptight Adjustment crew to let a prominent profile slip through its claws. A hero chased by some obscure force, this could make a fine noir movie, but a clear 'Hats-n-Doors' overwhelming organisation??? There simply is no story.