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Weekend Movie Forecast: <em>The Adjustment Bureau</em> Vs. <em>Rango</em>

By

Robert Horan

Published Mar 4, 2011

Modified Mar 4, 2011

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A lot of people probably identified with Paul Rudd's character in The 40- Year-Old Virgin when he was watching The Bourne Identity and said: "Y'know, I always thought that Matt Damon was like a Streisand, but he's rocking the shit in this one!" Maybe it was his choice of films in his pre-Bourne days, or his association with the former Hollywood whipping boy Ben Affleck, or maybe it was just the fact that he cried in the first film we saw him in. Whatever the case, not many people saw "Action Star" in his future. Nowadays, you can say "Matt Damon kicks ass" and actually mean it. Starting today, we get one more chance to see Damon run around taking names in the film The Adjustment Bureau. Damon plays a politician on the brink of winning a seat in the Senate when he falls for a beautiful ballet dancer. Just as he realizes he's in love with her, strange men conspire to keep them apart. Hate when that happens.Reviews have been very mixed, with ambivalence coming from Keith Phipps at the A.V. Club, who says: "After scrubbing Dick’s concept of its paranoid underpinnings, writer-director George Nolfi is left with the setup for an old-fashioned supernatural romance like Topper or The Bishop’s Wife, plus a central couple with unusually strong chemistry. Unfortunately, the film keeps Damon and Blunt apart more often than it brings them together, making it hard to keep that chemistry alive."Worse, The Adjustment Bureau never establishes any stakes. Damon is told that love isn’t part of the plan, but he’s never given a hint of any consequences should he veer from it. It’s too little premise stretched over too much movie, and while the cast gives it their all, Nolfi’s characterless direction only makes the movie feel that much slighter."

 

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By

Robert Horan

Published Mar 4, 2011

Modified Mar 4, 2011

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Click on the film stills for more details and reviews of this week's new releases and repertory screenings, which include: The Adjustment Bureau, Rango, Take Me Home Tonight, Red State, Deneuve, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Beastly, Ex Drummer, I Saw the Devil, Diary, 1973-1983, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

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