Movies: The Adjustment Bureau, Ironclad, Rango

HOLLYWOOD heavyweights love a movie pitch that can promise you two earlier hits shunted together in a concept that can be summed up in five words of less.

So say hello to ‘Bourne Meets Inception’ – or to give it the name on the posters, The Adjustment Bureau.

Politician Matt Damon and ballerina Emily Blunt are the couple centre stage in a slick thriller based on a story by cult sci-fi scribe Philip K. ‘Blade Runner’ Dick,

Matt is determined to make a life with the lovely Emily but mysterious forces are determined to keep them apart, and his pursuit of happiness takes him on an eye-popping journey across New York.

Think of it as Knight And Day. With a plot. And characters. And a script. It’s got excitement, and entertainment, and first time director George Nolfi could well be one to watch in this genre.

> James Purefoy only seems to be able to get work in blood-soaked period pieces, after making his mark in TV’s Rome and then popping up in Solomon Kane, among others.

In Ironclad he teams up with Paul Giamatti, Brian Cox and Jason Flemyng to head back to the Middle Ages and the seige of Rochester Castle in the time of bad King John.

The Magna Carta has just been signed but the king reneges and tries to crush the pesky nobles who brought him to heel with a crack band of ruthless mercenaries.

Our James is a noble Templar knight standing in their way.

> Johnny Depp! He’s one of the world’s most bankable stars despite a couple of stumbles in recent years, but it’s only his voice being called into action in Rango, a 3D animation from special effects giants Industrial Light & Magic.

The Rango of the title is a pet chameleon with a lively imagination who gets stranded in a grotty Old West town and has to find a way of getting along with the resident population of desert critters.

Other familiar voices from this side of the pond include Bill Nighy, Ray Winstone and Alfred Molina.

> Liam Neeson turned himself into an A-list action star as a deadly dad in Taken and then chucked away all those brownie points by leading the ill-advised A Team, but in Unknown he’s back on form.

He’s a doctor badly injured in a car crash, who wakes from a coma to find some other bloke has stolen his identity so thoroughly that even his wife doesn’t recognise you.

And then there are the mysterious assassins to contend with...

Secretive Diane Kruger seems to believe him, but what’s her game?

Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra, who had the critics cooing with Orphan, has made the transition to eerie arthouse to mainstream adventure with aplomb.