The Adjustment Bureau

After being described on Mark Kermode's film reviews show as 'Inception-lite', I was intrigued by 'The Adjustment Bureau'. The film is based on a Phillip K Dick book and stars Matt Damon, who in the Bourne films showed he's very capable of turning in a lead performance worthy of a good script. So there were reasons to be hopeful.

The film starts well. We see Damon - playing a New York congressman running for Senate - losing his senate race after a series of gaffs. He is observed from afar by men in Fedora style hats who seem oddly interested in his movements and actions. This is only 15 minutes into the movie, and at this point I was anticipating a mystery in the Hitchcock style. Strange then that shortly thereafter Damon's character stumbles into a room full of the fedora guys, who capture him and proceed to explain who they are, what they're doing and Damon's significance to them while outlining the rest of the movie. Essentially Damon must never see the girl he met on the bus today (Emily Blunt) or else the 'man upstairs' will be VERY UPSET!

Despite the best efforts of this plot exposition to derail the movie, the next hour is rather entertaining. Damon and Blunt's continuing efforts to flirt with each other before finally getting together are the stuff of romantic comedy fluff, but none-the-less fun to watch. It probably would have ended up scoring a solid 6 out of 10 if it were not for the lame ending, in which the characters get to have their cake and eat it. The fact that this film was ever mentioned in the same breath as 'Inception' surprises me a lot. I assume that the original book poses all sorts of philosophical questions about the nature of free will, these are either missed or ignored here in favour of an easy ending.