Here’s what I got out of The Adjustment Bureau, one of Matt Damon’s latest flicks. I know it came out last summer but I mostly see films after they’re released to DVD and I can rent them from a local store. After the last local video store is killed off by Netflix and Amazon direct streaming, I’ll have to either cave in and start watching what Netflix, Blockbuster and Amazon will offer, or stop watching movies. Or move to another country where they still have neighborhood video stores. So I still have a choice, eh? Not the end of the world.

Anyway, that Matt Damon can run like a bat out of hell, can’t he? It could be simple trick photography, or maybe they enhance the scene in production with a computer, but I like to think he really can run like a steam engine going flat-out down the track, arms and legs wheeling tirelessly. When he gets going, the man looks like he could outrun a charging grizzly bear.

The other take-away from this movie was, I sure like to watch Matt Damon being a good guy. He’s not bad at a lot of other acting. I like his action movies, and he has pretty good comic timing, but mostly I like him when he’s buddying up to somebody. He’s got a couple scenes in The Adjustment Bureau with Emily Blunt where they have such chemistry together, he looks like he could charm the stockings right off her or any girl he sidled up to in a night club, even if she didn’t know he was a famous film star.

But other than that, I didn’t get much out of this movie. It was very good-looking, and the writing was good enough that I wanted to keep watching, but I never did figure out what this movie was supposed to be about. Neither did anyone else I watched it with. “What is this movie supposed to be?” My Darling B asked at one point. “Science fiction? Fantasy? A love story? A comedy?” I think the director was trying to get all that in there, and he very nearly did. It almost ended up being an action/comedy, like The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (the Walter Matthau version, not that other piece of crap), combining science fiction/fantasy underpinnings with a romance, like maybe The Fisher King or Brazil, but it just didn’t come off. The romance didn’t quite work for me, in spite of the chemistry between Damon and Blunt, and the fantasy didn’t work, either, because even though walking through a door to another world it pretty cool, being able to do it only when you’re wearing a hat is kind of lame.

But Matt Damon, man, he sure can run fast.