The Adjustment Bureau

This is my review of The Adjustment Bureau. As I told my friend, “I weirdly feel like writing [it.] Because the world needs more of my opinion. And Tim shouldn’t hog all the movie opinions.”

I should warn you that I do not intend on being technical with terms, plot, names, or descriptions. Nor do I plan on delving into the thought provoking questions possibly brought to mind by this film. In fact, I’m not sure it’s even fair to call this a review. It’s just my opinion, shoved down your throat like hot gruel.

Or even worse better, brimstone and treacle.

Here's my opinion. "Take it and be thankful for it!"

But most of all, you should know that I’m not being careful about spoilers, so if you care about that sort of thing, stop reading now!!

Otherwise, carry on!

Like I did with my Tangled review, I want to start with the title.

I like it! Lots! I like it so much that I didn’t even feel the need to change the subject line, which I often do up to ten times before I publish a post. It’s interesting and gives the gist of the film without too much pomp and fanfare.

The one thing I dislike about the title: the word ‘bureau.’ That’s a hard word to spell. Its origins must be French, and as we all learned from Rata… Rati… *looks it up* Ratatouille, French words should never be allowed in film titles. Not even if it’s a French film.

Translation: "The Miserable Ones" starring Landon Nelson as John Smith Johnson

What I gathered from the trailer was this:

Matt Damon thinks–rightfully so–that Emily Blunt is pretty and wants to be with her. But because of some inevitable cataclysmic terror that will come to pass if their lives permanently intertwine, he is told not to be with her by important men in hats. He tries to be with her anyway. Then the men in hats trip him.

Maybe as a warning. Maybe for the laughs. Or maybe they're Republicans.

My brother–who saw the movie once before I did–told me that it was boring except for Emily Blunt. I shrugged and thought “whatever.” Not just because, um, Matt Damon is in it too, but I have far more appreciation for slow moving films devoid of car chase scenes and big explosions than my nineteen year old brother.

But essentially, he was right. (Ugh. How painful to admit he’s right about something. ) If it wasn’t for the romance angle, I would have been flat out bored. I found myself cracking jokes during any scene that didn’t involve interaction between the main couple, and even yawned during one philosophically thick conversation. And no, it is not natural for me to yawn during philosophical discussions.

The biggest problem–besides a failure to keep the thinking parts interesting–was the gap ridden plot.

The first noticeable problem arose when Matt Damon (for that is his name) failed to memorize a hot girl’s number.

Now, I am really bad with numbers. I can barely handle elementary level subtraction. But if I was infatuated with an attractive man and had the fortune to bump into him a second time in my life with the only means of future contact handed to me in a sequence of digits, you can bet your last bit I would put them to memory. And if a gang of men in fedoras chained me to a chair and threatened me with death, I would die repeating that sequence in my head. It just doesn’t seem plausible that Matt Damon wouldn’t think to learn the number. We all saw what he was capable of in the Bourne films.

In this scene, Jason Bourne attempts a frantic wooing of the lovely Queen Victoria via digi-book. She is aghast at this newfangled device.

And please don’t mention the “they can read minds” thing, because that came up like, once in the movie and never seemed to matter again.

Sometime after this tragic mistake, he’s managed to bump into the love of his life again and works to earn back her trust. But no sooner do things start to go well than the men show up in their dapper hats to warn that Matt’s pursual of Miss Blunt will result in the destruction of her grandest dreams. Specifically, those of becoming a world famous ballerina. So off he goes, sacrificing his need to be with this woman for the sake of her future rise to fame, and we, as a humane, heart-possessing audience are supposed to dab our eyes and say “Awwwww!”

Not happening.

His willingness to break his own heart for the sake of her dreams might have been a nice gesture if it wasn’t totally unnecessary. A simple game of Would You Rather could have settled things without a hospital dumping or a violation of the hat-men’s rules on super secrecy. And women love to play question games, so there was nothing to lose by this tactic!

Matt Damon: So… hypothetically, if you were to… not be a world famous dancer, but got to marry me instead, would that be okay?
Emily Blunt: *in adorable British accent* Well… can’t I have both?
Matt Damon: No, in this completely hypothetical scenario you are only allowed one or the other. What will would it be, lovely British woman? Me or your wildest dreams?

At that moment, she leans close to him and breathes…

“You were my new dream.”

Problem solved! He knows she loves him more than dancing without having to break the silly secrets rule and the movie can be an hour shorter!

The revelation scene was really weird, too, along with that whole part leading up to it. We figured it was a fantasy from the moment a politician gave an honest speech. But when Matt Damon goes from ignorant bylooker to seeing guys in fedoras doing brain scans on his friend while the rest of the office is frozen in time, it just felt out of place. I guess that could have been the point; from Matt Damon’s perspective, it was also really weird. But as an audience member I found it laughable even with a little bit of context.

And what about the dreaded consequences of their eternal togetherness? I thought it would be nuclear weapons being sold into enemy hands, or a political opponent’s decision causing a third of North America to break off from the continent and sink into the ocean, or a deadly virus killing millions, or worldwide famine at least.

Come to find out it’s just their own dreams that’ll suffer. That’s right. They can oh so selfishly be with the person who loves them completely, or make the noble sacrifice to be really, really famous and rich.

Huh?

Maybe if Matt Damon’s political career promised to save millions of people, or even a few who were very close to him, I would have cared. Or if the alternative path led Emily Blunt somewhere other than teaching kids the joy of dance, I could see where the men in hats had a point. But they didn’t.

Furthermore, when the men in hats tell Matt and Em that she made a great sacrifice by following him, I just didn’t feel it. So she went through magical doors and they made out on a roof. Love conquers all, yay.

But the cost wasn’t great. It’s not like she had a family to think about or friends that would suffer because of her choice. And if she did, we weren’t given enough character development to grasp it. It didn’t take a lot of courage to hold Matt Damon’s hand and go with him through the magic doorway. (Trust me on that.) She had just left her fiance at the courthouse from whence she was planning on marrying him. Can you imagine the mess to sort out? Explanations, apologies, decisions on whether you’re going to repair things with jilted groom or stick by the man you loved from a long time ago while your friends probably call you filthy names behind your back. Running away from all that was not a hard choice to make.

There was one scene that made me feel scared that maybe continuing the chase was a bad idea. That was the taxi crash. Right then, stuff got real. But the driver was fine! Nobody died! In all of Matt Damon’s romancing, the only casualties were a couple careers and a mini-skirt! And it wasn’t Matt’s fault that the taxi guy couldn’t drive properly. Honestly.

If the movie was purely a romantic comedy/drama, it would have been tons better. Even I, who watch dozens of BBC dramas comprised mostly of hour long conversations in the drawing room, was disappointed by the lack of excitement to be gained from this film. The preview built it up to be a suspense movie, but unless the couple was bantering and giggling, I had zero interest.

From this review you might think I didn’t like the film. But I did. I kind of want to watch it a couple more times because it was interesting and made me think. In fact, I appreciate that the plot was gappy, giving me the chance to complain about things in this very long blog post!

All in all, I give it three out of five fedoras.

Although I can’t help thinking that from now on every guy who’s ever late for a date has prime excuse material.

"What do you mean, 'The men in hats don't want us to be together?!?' That is not an acceptable explanation!"

A Tangled Review

I’m usually content to leave these movie reviews up to my friend over at The Creative Juicer. I feel like I’m not qualified to do these since I’m more or less just sharing my opinion and how that’s meant to be useful to you, I don’t know. (I obviously feel completely different about book reviews. )

However, this film came out in the theaters before Timotheous had his blogging quill in hand, and as it’s a Disney fairy tale I feel I have some right to be giving my opinion on it.

Tangled

or what should be known as

Rapunzel

I want to start with the negative and move into the positive.

Let’s start with the most blatantly obvious thing; the title. I have mixed feelings about it because while it’s not called Rapunzel, there lives a little flicker of hope that someday they’ll make one in classic Disney style. However, the odds of that happening seem very slim, and as this is the only Disney animation of Rapunzel so far, they might as well call it what it is–Rapunzel. Besides, not once does her hair really get tangled in the movie. It gets caught, rolled up, tripped over, and purposefully wound on things, but never tangled. Makes the title kind of stupid.

Tresemme! Beautiful hair is easy!

My second issue; Mandy Moore. I have nothing against her voice for the role. It’s sweet and expressive and she did an excellent job. But I have a hard time separating her voice from her name and her face. As soon as I heard Rapunzel talk, I knew who was voicing her. And since A Walk To Remember was such a big part of my youth, I kept picturing scenes from that as I watched.

Oh look, it's me! I mean... Mandy Moore.

So to that I’d just say, I wish they picked some sweet voiced unknown for the role. Maybe if I watch it enough times I’ll forget what Mandy Moore looks like.

*Edit* I have now watched it for the third time and am completely reconciled to the fact that it’s Mandy Moore. In fact, I forgot about it being her. In a good way. So yay!

Next… The animation is not like your standard Disney fairy tale. I’m not the sort of person who learns all the technical terms for things, but suffice to say the graphics are more Toy Story than Cinderella. This bothered me a great deal at first, because even though I’d seen all the posters and art and knew it wasn’t the same, I still half-expected something like this:

And instead was met with this:

…which is quite shocking, believe me. And for a while it felt all wrong, like I stepped into an alternate dimension that pretended to be the world of Disney but wasn’t.

Don’t get me wrong! It’s very pretty and looks like a painting come to life, and by the end of the first scene I was okay with it being different. It just takes some getting used to.

Another negative; Flynn is kind of a jerk. Yes, it’s funny that he’s trying to get rid of this long-haired nuisance and feeds on her guilt and takes her to horrible places to try to make her give up on the deal, but despite the outward laughter, I twitched a bit inside. A Disney prince (or even thief, as we have Aladdin for proof) never put a princess (or lady) in harm’s way. He was always getting her out of it. Always. I really wish they would have been more traditional with this. It’s sweet that he has a change of heart as they progress, but even Dimitri from Anastasia (which is not a Disney film, I realize) wasn’t dragging Anya into scary places just to make her be quiet. You may argue that such a thing risks a character that’s too perfect. But duh, this is Disney. The male love interests are supposed to be perfect, even if they’re rogues. This is making sense, right? It makes sense to me.

"Why did you take me to the scary tavern, Flynn?"

Now what I liked.

I loved the little hints of things from other Disney films. There’s the dandelion that blows in the wind when Rapunzel first comes out of her tower, reminiscent of Beauty and the Beast. Flynn and Rapunzel almost kiss in a boat, kind of like in The Little Mermaid, and a line in the song “I See The Light” goes “it’s crystal clear.” Aladdin, anyone? It makes you feel that despite the new designs they tried not to stray too far from their roots. (Haha! Roots, get it??)

I also thought Maximus the soldier’s horse was epic and grand. And Pascal was adorable. Approval on the animal sidekicks.

Now there are basically four scenes that absolutely made the movie for me. Despite all the little issues I had with the… newfangled… things, these four scenes (and one in particular) were right up there with ye ‘ole treasured Disney classics. (In my humble, unprofessional opinion.)

Firstly, when Rapunzel first leaves the tower. All that scene as well as the bit where she goes through some emotional turmoil. I think every girl can relate to that. And my dad laughed so hard he had to rewind it because he kept missing the next piece of dialogue.

As for the song that leads up to that bit, I’ll admit it isn’t long enough or possessing of that old fashioned charm like “Belle,” but Rapunzel’s exuberance from being free at last is catching, and since it’s a reprise the length can be forgiven. The colorful nature of the scene is breathtaking, and the flock of birds was a nice touch. Because it felt like… yes, we’re flying too. In our hearts.

Wow… what Disney films to do me. *coughs* Right… so, moving on.

The kingdom scene. When Rapunzel goes wandering through the kingdom wide-eyed, it reminds me of my favorite Little Mermaid scene, when she’s excitedly pointing everything out to the prince. And everything that follows creates a gem.

This one is so lovely that I must post the scene. You know all those little surveys that ask, “What’s your ideal date?” I always scoffed and said, “I couldn’t possibly pick an ideal.” Well… I lied. I picked one. It’s this scene. *happy sigh*

And it makes me feel like I’m not a crazy weirdo for dancing in the middle of Sam’s Club to a sample of Celtic music they had on the little test album button. Hey, my skirt was from Ireland and it was begging to be taken for a whirl!

I’m mixing things up chronologically now so I can save the best for last. I won’t put any spoilers, but I love how they did the end. Well… not the very end–I actually though the last scene could have been better–but the whole confrontation in the tower with the evil villainess. I was so frightened that it would be a let down, and I was thrilled to see what they did as far as the whole hair chopping and magical tears part went. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you’ve never read the Grimm’s version. But yes! It was grand! And wonderful! And I did not feel cheated.

ur haire iz lyk p1llow

Now to the best scene ever.

No matter what else bugged me, no matter what I thought the movie lacked, the lantern scene in the boat with the song made up for it all. I will admit to having grown teary-eyed. It gave me shivers. The fact that I’m not describing it well proves I feel I won’t do it justice. What I mean is, it’s too lovely for words.

Someone, someday is going to recreate this scene and live it with me

and then I will marry him in gratitude.

If you haven’t seen the movie, don’t watch this. Because it’ll all be worth it once you get to this part. If you don’t ever plan on seeing the movie, maybe do watch this and you might change your mind. But still probably don’t because it won’t be as meaningful without the build up… and I don’t want dislikers watching my new favorite Disney scene! *sniffles*

I See The Light

Then I was sold. Best movie ever. Let’s buy it. Own it. REWIND SCENE!!

Oh, did you want a little sum up of thoughts? Maybe a rating for this movie?

I’m feeling devious tonight and will refuse. You can take my really long review or have nothing.

But one last thought. If anything needed adding, it’s a song for Flynn. Not one about thieving, because we already have Aladdin’s nice little ditty about robbing. But… I don’t know… something actiony and daring. He really should have had a solo. It could have been part of the scene where Maximus chases him, and then the music swells and ends right as he comes across the tower. It’s an idea.

Farewell! May your lanterns glow like the starlight!

~B~