Movie Mush: The Adjustment Bureau

I'm a fan of Matt Damon and the trailer seemed promising, so I watched "The Adjustment Bureau" with expectations. Maybe I shouldn't have!

The storyline is simple: The affair between a politician, David Norris (Matt Damon) and a ballerina, Elise Sellas, (played by the beautiful Emily Blunt) is affected by mysterious forces keeping the lovers apart. The mysterious forces here are the Adjustment Bureau, who are people who control the way the world functions.

Now what do these hat-cladding people from the Adjustment Bureau do? They can stop time, decide who meets whom and what happens everyday. In short, they are eerily similar to the guys from the 1998 movie 'Dark City' except that those hat-cladding people were bad and these, are good. The story may sound almost cliched to people who have watched movies such as The Marix series and 'The Dark City'.

But the writers do try to explain how the members of the Bureau alter only significant events and let other events to the human free-will. And the movie does have its moments, such as those when the scene in which the purpose of the existence of the Adjustment Bureau is explained and especially during the climax, when David tries to fool the bureau and elope with Elise.

Matt Damon puts in a solid performance as a young politician with high aspirations and Emily Blunt matches her role to a T. They share a good chemistry and the romantic scenes are well acted. But the use of hats and turning the door knobs clockwise to use the Bureau's path is almost fairy tale stuff and makes you snigger, almost.

The movie has an interesting start, picks up speed on the way but the end is soft. As an audience, you were just expecting something more. But ah, that doesn't happen. The climax is a little abrupt and is not explained convincingly. Overall, it is worth a watch, but only just.

I'd give it 6/10.