The Adjustment Bureau (2011) - Originally Written August 6, 2012

 The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

Watching the Movie: 

Definitely a different movie going experience. 15 minutes in you think you're watching a political science seminar that should have George Clooney in it somewhere; but it's far from that. The story moves along quickly enough that you're entertained; and Damon/Blunt do a decent enough acting job to make you actually be bothered to care about what happens to them throughout, still at the end of the day, it's still very much a science-fiction love story that has just enough Roger Sterling in it to be pretty awesome.

Screening the Film: 

Man vs Self, Man vs. Society, Man vs GOD, destiny vs free will, The Corporation and hierarchy structures, data flow and information asymmetry. Chaos theory, and like almost all things involving the work of Philip K Dick, perception vs. reality.

Best Dialogue: 

"We actually tried Free Will before. After taking you from hunting and gathering to the height of the Roman Empire we stepped back to see how you'd do on your own. You gave us the Dark Ages for five centuries... until finally we decided we should come back in. The Chairman thought maybe we just needed to do a better job of teaching you how to ride a bike before taking the training wheels off again. So we gave you the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution. For six hundred years we taught you to control your impulses with reason, then in 1910 we stepped back. Within fifty years, you'd brought us World War I, the Depression, Fascism, the Holocaust and capped it off by bringing the entire planet to the brink of destruction in the Cuban Missile Crisis. At that point a decision was taken to step back in again before you did something that even we couldn't fix. You don't have free will, David. You have the appearance of free will."

The Bottom Line:

The Adjustment Bureau is a decently fun little love story based in the mother of all nerdy sci-fi universes. It's biggest problem is that it feels at times like it was trying to be more controversial or make a bigger statement as a film than it did. It's a fun little movie, and not a bad film; but part of me thinks that the powers that be really wish it was more than that.

3 out of 5

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

(Video Games) Dispatch

    Dispatch Dispatch before Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 ? Yeah. I am as surprised as you. The Usual Video Game Disclaimer Long time followers of my blog know that I don't usually do Video Game reviews. Part of this is because the WTM/STF format doesn't really apply to video game story telling. Movies/Films top out at 3-3.5 hours. Modern video games with a story even worth exploring start at 10-12 hours. There's usually just too much there there to keep up with. The other major reason I don't review video games is that fun is such a subjective and evolving concept. In 1972, Pong was the greatest game ever. It was two sticks passing a digital ball back and forth. In 1980, Pac-Man was the greatest game ever. It was a big yellow circle eating small white circles and running away from multi-colored ghosts; pretty much indefinitely. In 1991 Street Fighter II was the greatest game ever. It was pick one of 8 people (well, 7 people and whatever the hell Blanka is) and beat up ...
Read more

(Video Games) Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Image
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 For Ledger: Many people have taught me that tomorrow is not necessarily guaranteed, you taught me that today is not necessarily guaranteed either. Uncle Michael loves you kiddo. You deserved so much better than you got. Rest in Peace little one. The Prophecy Foretold "The studio made their game because they wanted to make a game that they wanted to play themselves. They didn’t make it to increase market shares. They didn’t make it to serve a brand. They didn’t have to meet arbitrary sales targets or fear being laid off if they didn’t meet those targets. Furthermore, the people in charge forbade them from cramming the game with anything whose only purpose was to increase revenue, and didn’t serve the game design. They didn’t treat their developers like numbers on a spreadsheet. They didn’t treat their players as users to exploit, and they didn’t make decisions they knew were shortsighted in function of a bonus or politics. They knew that if you put the g...
Read more

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (2005)

    Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Watching The Movie: Enjoyment of this as a movie is highly correlated to enjoyment of Final Fantasy VII and the universe and lore created therein. However, that's not to say that knowing every aspect of lore around the narrative is necessary. My wife went in knowing very little about FFVII and was not entirely lost in the story. The movie does a good job giving at least a base framework of who the characters are to one another and the general issues going in within the world. If you like frantic, non-stop action then it's likely you'll enjoy watching this movie, even if it is only once. Screening the Film:  Obviously, a movie with the word children in the title will have a few images of the parental relationships, specifically between mothers and sons. There also is significant imagery around familial bonds of siblings with specific focus on brothers. Given the focus on Rufus, the Turks, and Shinra in general, there's some pretty s...
Read more