The Adjustment Bureau

I won’t deny that The Adjustment Bureau has an interesting idea at its core. Hey, it’s loosely based on a Philip K. Dick short story (“The Adjustment Team”), and he’s the genius responsible for mind-bending tales that led to great films like Total Recall, Blade Runner, Minority Report and A Scanner Darkly. Writer-director George Nolfi has chosen to adapt Dick’s story to the screen for his directorial debut. While it’s certainly an ambitious undertaking, the movie is a mess suffering from an identity crisis, with the actors seemingly uncertain of what kind of movie they’re in. Matt Damon plays a politician who finds out our life paths are monitored by some sort of secret society that wears fancy hats. They have some super powers, and they don’t want him messing around with a girl he met (Emily Blunt), because he’s supposed to be president some day. The whole thing winds up being silly and sloppy.