5 Simple Improvements That Could Have Changed The Adjustment Bureau From Good To Great

It's a pain to waste your time watching a bad movie, but how much more frustrating is it to watch an okay movie and realize how much better it might have been with just a couple tweaks here and there? The Adjustment Bureau was, as the President might say, likeable enough -- an intriguing concept, congenial stars, and a cool look to the whole thing -- but as Roger Ebert says, it's "a smart and good movie that could have been a great one if it had a little more daring." So what are the five easy ways that The Adjustment Bureau could go from DVD recommendation to a must-see-movie?

It should go without saying, but spoilers ahoy!

1. Ditch the Comic Book Limitations on The Bureau's Powers

Maybe the producers thought if they weren't given their own brand of Kryptonite, the Bureau would be too powerful, but all of this "Our powers don't work around water!" "Our hats are the key to our abilities!" "We can read your mind! Or not, perhaps!" nonsense just doesn't work. It all ends up being pointless filler that does nothing to advance the story but only acts as an easily surmountable straw man for Matt Damon to quickly triumph over.

2. Just Call Them F*cking Angels, Already

The movie plays cutesy-poo with what the Bureau is, referring to an omniscient "Chairman," and saying that Bureau has "been called angels" in the past, but really, it's just a cheap dodge. There's no one that doesn't leave the theater that doesn't think of them as angels enacting God's will. So, why not just go whole hog and play with the concept of angels and everything that would entail. The idea of celestial intervention that may or may not be infallible is a hell of lot more fascinating a concept than men in grey suits out to mess up your life.

3. More John Slattery

Speaking of angels that aren't angels, Slattery's character more or less disappears about half way through the movie. Frankly, his character -- wryly menacing with a silky detached charm -- fits exactly how I think an angel, faced with millennia of man's bad behavior, would act. Sorry Zod.

4. Give Matt Damon and Emily Blunt More On-Screen Time Together

Damon and Blunt have fantastic chemistry together, enough so that I hope they're cast in another movie together, but they spend most of the movie apart. Which I know is rather the point of the movie, but I think just a few more scenes together could have really sold the idea that Damon and Blunt are so deeply in love that they're willing to defy God's the Chairman's Will. It's only through some top-notch acting from the two of them that I was willing to even believe it was true love rather than a puppy-dog infatuation.

5. Don't Be So Afraid Of Your Own Concept That You Shoehorn In a Tepid Chase Scene

There's a whole metaphysical riddle of free will vs. predestination hidden in the movie, but it's more or less chucked out the window in exchange for some lackluster chase scenes. Damon and Blunt's strong connection is chalked up to the fact that in an earlier iteration of The Chairman's plan, they were meant to fall in love, but now that plan has changed. So does that imply that their love isn't even really a function of their own will? How often does the Chairman change His Plan around like that? These are fascinating ideas that could have been played with, but instead we're treated to an interminable training montage in which Matt Damon learns about the Doors of Lower Manhattan. Like Ebert said, these are some explosive and tantalizing concepts that the movie introduces, and I only wish that the movie had courage enough to unpack them further, rather than just serving up a fedora'ed Bourne because they're worried we might get too bored.