Like Rango, ever since I saw a trailer for this with True Grit I had very high hopes for this movie. In some ways, this movie satisfied my expectations, but in some ways, it didn't. To put it in plain speech, The Adjustment Bureau was not the science fiction epic I thought it was going to be, but it was an entertaining and interesting movie with two strong lead performances and an interesting premise. Like the critics said, it did have some trouble maintaining a consistent tone, seeing as it did flip from romance to sci-fi, but it rose on the strong believable chemistry of its main stars.
David Norris (Damon) is a young reckless politician running for New York senate. He meets Elise (Blunt), a mysterious woman who inspires him to make a speech that puts him in the place of frontrunner for the election. He runs into Elise again and is promptly attacked by strange people who are trying to keep them apart. David further learns about the people and how they have created a plan for him, which includes him winning the election. However, it does not include him being with Elise. David has to somehow escape the detection of the Bureau and fight for his free will.
The movie has a very interesting premise, and poses some wonderful thoughts on free will and how people take it for granted. The dialogue was okay, nothing special, but I wasn't expecting it to be anything spectacular. The film has tonal issues too, but the story was still rather well-paced and put together, despite it dragging at some parts. Anyway, the movie pretty much makes the most of its promising premise and storywise, was pretty good (despite the already-mentioned tonal issues). The characterization was great as well, even though I didn't really get the air of politician from Damon. The characters were well-developed and you wanted to see David and Elise get together at the end.
The movie featured some very strong performances, especially Matt Damon and Emily Blunt in the lead roles. They are both strong actors unto themselves, and they seemed to work together well with magnetic chemistry as a couple. Every time that Matt Damon said to Emily Blunt that he loved her, I certainly believed it and I wanted to see their characters be together. The antagonists were pretty good as well, like Terrence Stamp as Thompson and some guy who's in a ton of movies but I never remember his name as Richardson. The only other performance worth noting is Anthony Mackie as Harry, the Bureau member who helps David be with Elise. All in all, strong performances in an overall strong movie.
One final note before I end this. The art direction in this film is superb. I know its a bit too early to be predicting Oscars, but I think that the cinematography and art direction are quite possibly Oscar worthy. Every single building in the movie and every single hallway looked gorgeous and the cinematographers/set designers clearly know what they're doing. What little visual effects were in this movie were splendid and all in all, the movie had some pretty good visuals.
This was a pretty good movie, and I would definitely recommend it. If you are a male and you are into sci-fi and your significant other doesn't like sci-fi, then you can tell her that it has quite the romantic element and it would pretty much the only sci-fi I would recommend for a date night. It wasn't the sci-fi epic that I thought it would be, but it was decently entertaining and an easy recommendation. I would recommend that you see it in theatres too, beause it was very fun to watch on a big screen.
