Taking a Former Sci Fi Idea and Making It Better

Rating: 8/10 (18 January 2019)

6 March 2011. Sometimes an idea and a sequel that's not a sequel gets better with time and THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU does just that. With strong elements from "A Matter of Time," an episode of the contemporary THE TWILIGHT ZONE (January 26, 1986), MEN IN BLACK (1997), THE TRUMAN SHOW (1998,)THE MATRIX (1999), BEING JOHN MALKOVICH (1999), and ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (2004), the movie script adapted from the amazing mind of the late Philip K. Dick's short story (whose written work inspired - A Scanner Darkly, 2006; Paycheck, 2003; Minority Report, 2002; Total Recall, 1990; Bladerunner, 1982) brings together the often times human element that is only experienced as a supporting role but in this movie is made the central element in this movie.
The beginning scenes, especially with the John Slattery's character having an uneven tone between dramatic and wry humor, seem to almost take its manipulative premise almost too well and comes across just a scripted and manipulative for the audience as the characters in the movie itself. The Wil Smith character-look-a-like also is a bit distracting and his role in the movie seems a bit too obviously interfering and distracting somehow taking a little away from the totality of the movie's suspended authenticity.
Overall though, this movie quickly merges into a finely honed character-driven, emotive and compelling dramatic thriller and allows its principal characters to show the audience (us) in a fantasy in a fantasy of how we ourselves would like to see ourselves. A genuinely solid and qualitatively superior film follows in the footsteps of THE SOLOIST (2009); THE TRUMAN SHOW (1998); CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977); Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004); Twelve Monkeys (1996); The Bourne Identity (2002); The Cooler (2003); Brazil (1985); Blade Runner (1982), Inception (2010), and Nomads (1986).