Movie Review: Damon's new flick is more romance than sci-fi thriller

   If you are expecting heart-thumping action — along the lines of "Green Zone" or the Bourne trilogy — from Matt Damon's newest flick, "The Adjustment Bureau," then you might want to take your significant other. All you'll find is heart-thumping romance.

   Not one shot is fired.

   In fact, there are no guns at all.

   Actually, there is no violence to speak of...well, Damon does throw two punches. A well-timed right hook levels one guy, while the other jab barely fazes 75-year-old Terence Stamp...but he did have it coming.

   Ill-fated Senate-hopeful David Norris (Damon) finds the love of his life in Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt), a sassy contemporary ballet dancer. But their romance is not part of the "plan," which is micromanaged by a team of omnipresent, fedora-clad adjusters.

   The characters' fateful meeting in the men's room of the Waldorf-Astoria — where they share their first completely random and ill-timed kiss — conflicts with their ability to follow their dreams.

   The adjusters tell Norris that he cannot see her again, although they can’t tell him why — only the “chairman” knows.

   Norris, destined to become President of the United States, and Sellas, one of the world's foremost dancers, are drawn to each other by instances of chance and coincidence, which cannot be foreseen nor adjusted. So they fall deeper into love as the movie continues and try to change their diverging paths.

   The archaic duel between fate and freewill determines the entire angst of the one hour, 39 minute drama.

  The empathizing and compassionate adjuster Harry Mitchell, played by Anthony Mackie, sums up the movie’s message when he tells Damon that only when one challenges fate can he truly have freewill.

  But alas, we know how it ends.

  Love conquers all and freewill trumps the "plan."

  But that can't be it right...Maybe it's the pessimist in me, but they should, at the very least, fall short of their lofty goals. However, the movie doesn't even venture to answer those questions. The characters simply end up happily together.

  Although the movie lacks Damon’s usual he-man vigor, it is suspenseful and surprisingly a sweet love story. Blunt embodies the ballsy ballerina beautifully, and eloquently, and Damon’s hopeless romance is every girls dream. While their on-screen chemistry gels into delightful, witty banter (Damon has always excelled at banter), the couples final kiss is even more awkward than their first.

  Screenwriter and director, George Nolfi, underplays the complexity of the sci-fi thriller advertised and many questions go unexplained.

I give it a C+. I wouldn't buy it, but I wouldn't turn away if it came on cable.