Friday, March 4, 2011

When 'Blade Runner' meets Alfred Hitchcock

God is in the details. So are the best movies.

"The Adjustment Bureau," an enormously entertaining speculative thriller starring Matt Damon, would earn its kudos for ambition alone. An adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story, this is a movie of myriad genres and tonal gradations, including classic science fiction in the tradition of "Blade Runner" and "The Matrix" and the doomed romance of "An Affair to Remember." Throw in the conspiratorial intrigue of "The Manchurian Candidate" - and a first-time director to keep it all straight - and the singular achievement of "The Adjustment Bureau" becomes all the more impressive.

Working from his own script, director George Nolfi has executed the cinematic equivalent of a twisting, tumbling high dive with precision and finesse. He proves himself just as adept with dazzling feats of visual imagination as with human emotion, which, while less spectacular, entails a higher degree of difficulty.

Granted, to enjoy "The Adjustment Bureau" most profitably, the viewer must engage in some powerful suspension of disbelief. Damon plays a gifted young New York politician named David Norris, who, as the movie opens, is wrapping up a campaign to become the state's youngest U.S. senator. Handsome, charismatic and hot headed, Norris is practicing a crucial speech in a Waldorf Astoria men's room on election night when he meets Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt) as she steps out of one of the stalls. The fact that Elise is hanging out in the gents' is but the first tip-off that she's a free spirit. Within moments, they're lost in the badinage of two people on the brink of something big.

As a couple, David and Elise are clearly meant to be, but it turns out that David's future may have other plans. The Fates are aligned in the form of the title outfit, led by a no-nonsense operative named Richardson, played by John Slattery in a crafty, deadpan take. At one point, Richardson explains to David that his life course is being overseen by a shadowy figure called "The Chairman." The identity of that omnipotent figure is never disclosed, but from the looks of the retro-perfect hats and overcoats Richardson and his men wear, it's either Frank Sinatra or "Mad Men's" Bert Cooper himself.

Slattery's martini-dry turn as Richardson - as well as Anthony Mackie's doe-eyed performance as a bureau rookie named Harry and the always deliciously malign Terence Stamp as head agent Thompson - injects notes of wry, antic humor into "The Adjustment Bureau," which in less adroit hands could have become a ponderous exercise in self-serious style. Instead, Nolfi consistently resists the temptation to overreach, tempering David's fight against destiny with welcome jolts of sprightly, irreverent wit.

As a simple race-and-chase, "The Adjustment Bureau" succeeds on the purest cinematic level, especially in a wowser of a climactic pursuit that recalls "Inception" in its mind-bending tour through multiple doors of perception. (Nolfi clearly knows his way around cats and mice, having written "Ocean's Twelve" and "The Bourne Ultimatum," among other films.) Handsomely staged as a valentine to New York at its most timeless, the sequence seamlessly integrates shots of everyday Manhattan with visual effects that suggest the Bronx is down and the Battery's up.

For all these flourishes, the most gratifying rewards of "The Adjustment Bureau" aren't in structure and craft alone, but in Nolfi's grasp of the details, which ground even its most preposterous plot twists in an authentic world. From the outset, the movie smoothly captures contemporary political culture as Norris makes the rounds from "The Daily Show" to the cover of GQ. (The filmmakers of "The Adjustment Bureau" reportedly piggybacked on Damon's publicity tour for "The Informant!" to film him bantering with Jon Stewart.)

A succession of cameos ensues, including by pundits Mary Matalin, James Carville and Wolf Blitzer and by political players Terry McAuliffe, Mike Bloomberg and Madeleine Albright, with Damon looking every bit the focus-grouped ward heeler throughout. The capper comes when Norris delivers a mini-masterpiece of Sorkinian political rhetoric that, in its savvy, sophistication and self-award candor, could have sprung fully formed from Jed Bartlet's speechwriting shop. ("The Adjustment Bureau" also understands the peculiarity of political fame: When Norris arrives at a crowded nightclub at one point, he isn't deluged but politely acknowledged by the few people who know who he is. He's a rock star, but only in a mediasphere where Scott Brown possesses a Q rating somewhere between Justin Bieber and Richard Lugar.)

As satisfying as it is to watch a movie in which sci-fi speculation on fate and free will co-exists so easily with references to Sarbanes-Oxley, "The Adjustment Bureau" gets the boy-girl thing right, too. As James Franco and Anne Hathaway now know too well, chemistry is everything. And within moments, Damon and Blunt generate sparks that fly not between superbly compatible physical specimens but real people.

When Elise taunts David about his tie or he makes winking reference to the length of her skirt, there's a giddy, invisible vibration between them, created by the tuning fork of inside jokes and shared references. Even though their relationship is threatened by an utterly absurd existential danger, it's been established with such real-world gestures and rhythms that, when David decides to fight for it, the audience is right there with him.

What Nolfi understands and "The Adjustment Bureau" conveys so subtlely is that romance is less a function of grand physical passions than the quiet, unmistakable jolt of two sensibilities meeting and recognizing and protecting each other. Even if they're played out against the most mind-bending alternate realities, those are the affairs we remember.

Movie Review: There’s little beauty in ‘Beastly’

Typical teen tripe, “Beastly” is as monstrous to watch as it sounds. The film is a modern-day take on “Beauty and the Beast,” starring Alex Pettyfer as a teenage hunk-turned-beast pining for “High School Musical” beauty Vanessa Hudgens.

Making things barely tolerable are a Gothed-to-the-max Mary-Kate Olsen and a hammy Neil Patrick Harris, who gets the film’s least embarrassing lines.

Olsen’s character isn’t really a stretch for her, but the pint-size twin is pitch perfect as the high school witch, Kendra, who casts the spell on Pettyfer’s pretty-boy Kyle. He’s a rich, popular kid with Greek-god good looks and chiseled muscles. He says lines such as, “People like people who look good. Anyone who says different is either ugly or dumb.”

After Kyle insults Kendra’s witchy ways one too many times –– he refers to her as “Franken skank” –– she turns him into a bald wretch with ugly tattoos and deep scars all over his body. In his words, he looks “like the lead in a slasher film.” The spell can only be broken once a woman falls in love with Kyle, not for how he looks, but because of what’s in his heart –– naturally. The love interest turns out to be classmate Lindy (Hudgens), who, thanks to some WTF plot machinations, is forced to live with Kyle.

What develops is a tale as old as time and a song as old as rhyme. Culled from the Alex Flinn novel, the film “Beastly” was written and directed by Daniel Barnz, who helmed “Phoebe in Wonderland.” Just as he did in that film, Barnz fills “Beastly” with unnecessary metaphors and contrivances as Kyle attempts to woo Lindy with Jujyfruits and poetry. Both teens also find common ground over their deadbeat dads and missing moms. None of it matters because you don’t really care what happens to them. There is zero charm or chemistry between Pettyfer and Hudgens. Her character is a cliche, and she does nothing to make anyone think otherwise.

British actor Pettyfer, who also stars in the still-in-theaters Disney suspense thriller “I Am Number Four,” is trying really, really hard to fill his character with complexity and nuance. He does his dutiful best, starting out with pompous conceit and then turning to anger and fear. Perhaps someday he’ll evolve into a more pliable actor.

First, though, he needs good material. That’s where Barnz lets his whole cast down. The more the story unfolds, the deeper they all sink into formulaic fairytale abyss, including the never-in-doubt ending.

Harris is the only character thrown a life jacket. He’s as welcome as a comic relief as Kyle’s blind tutor. Will might just be a less-horny version of Harris’ “How I Met Your Mother” character, but he is a breath of fresh air. Lisa Gay Hamilton (“The Truth About Charlie”) is wasted as the housekeeper and surrogate mother, charged with minding Kyle because his father (Peter Krause of TV’s “Parenthood”) is a shallow news anchor and can’t stand to look at him.

“Beastly” has its heart in the right place as it tells the moral tale that beauty is only skin deep. It’s just too bad there is no magic in this fairytale.

Ronan Keating to act in movie

Singer Ronan Keating has revealed he has landed a role in an Australian movie, but refused to give more details about the project.

The Boyzone singer has recently been working as a judge on the Australian version of The X Factor, will return next month to shoot scenes for the top secret project, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

'I am coming down April 7, because I am shooting my first movie in Australia. It's an Australian movie... I'm very excited. I can't tell you the title but I'm going to be on set April 10 in Sydney,' he said.

Keating has three children, Jack, Marie and Ali with his wife Yvonne.