Maladjustment3 Out Of 5 Stars
Matt Damon and Emily Blunt are star crossed lovers. While that may sound like a set up for a romantic movie, in "The Adjustment Bureau," it could destroy the world as 'The Chairman' has planned. As loosely based on a story by Phillip K Dick, the adjusters come to Earth at the orders of the Chairman to quietly make little tweaks so the world runs just as it should. Trouble is, Damon and Blunt are not supposed to be in the plan.
In Dick's story, Damon's Dick Norris is not a rising polition, but some grey suit in an office who stumbles into the adjusters, who happen to be dogs. In the story, the dog is supposed to bark and delay Damon. In this case, the adjusters are given human form and magic fedoras that make John Slattery look like he just crossed the street from shooting Mad Men, but in the movie give them the power to navigate strange portals (a store door that opens to Yankee Stadium, for example) and make things work as the Chairman sees fit.
Religious Allegory much? While that is never mentioned, Chairman = God gets obvious and tiresome as the movie stretches out. While Dick's original story was deeply misogynistic, at least Blunt is given a woman who could conceivably be the strong character Damon would fall for. Ultimately, the faith versus fate versus freewill argument consumes the movie and the holes begin taking up more space than the magic doors. Blunt and Damon have good chemistry, Terrence Stamp is a menacing adjuster, but the movie can't maintain a steady pace. "Inception" this isn't.
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