Running time: 119 minutes
Rating 4 out of 10
Any more disasters like this and John Woo will become John Who? Paycheck is the latest in a run of disappointing films from the Chinese director that has included Mission Impossible II and Windtalkers. Having gained a formidable reputation in his homeland for producing such exhilarating and stylized action films as 1992's Hard Boiled, Woo has become a formulaic Hollywood director exhibiting few traces of originality. Indeed, he's almost become a parody of himself with the inclusion of such signature images as a white dove.
Woo's cause isn't helped by the rigid, witless performance of Ben Affleck, himself not exactly on a roll. The final nail in the coffin is the sprawling and confused adaptation of futuristic sci-fi maestro Philip K. Dick's short story. With the best of his work already up on screen (Blade Runner and Total Recall), it's now Dick's lesser works that are being plundered. Minority Report was entertaining, even if not wholly satisfying, but Paycheck is a dull mess in comparison that substitutes explosions for purpose and gadgets for story.
The complex plot involves Michael Jennings (Ben Affleck), who gets paid to have his memory erased only to discover that it's not only his memory that he's lost. A brilliant engineer who specializes in working backwards from a problem to find its solution, Jennings is offered $92 million to donate three years of his memory to the Allcom corporation, headed by his old school buddy James Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart). After the period is up, Jennings goes to collect his fee only to discover he'd apparently signed away his rights to the money in place of a bag of seemingly worthless items.
Using his skills as a reverse-engineer, Jennings tries to figure out what all the items mean and why he valued them more than the money. In his quest he is joined by the beautiful Rachel Porter (Uma Thurman) with whom he worked at Allcom. To complicate matters more, Jennings finds himself wanted by the FBI for fraud, apparently having signed his name to patents created by someone else.
Affleck does a more than convincing take on someone who is completely confused. It's when trying to convey any other emotions that he has difficulty. He lacks depth or lightness of touch, instead everything is too starched and forced and he and Thurman lack any kind of chemistry.
The story's high tech elements are realized with little imagination offering nothing that hasn't been seen more effectively elsewhere. Even the fight sequences and car chases that Woo has always excelled in seem uninspired. It's almost as if the film's title refers less to the plot and more to the motivation of those involved.
Woo's cause isn't helped by the rigid, witless performance of Ben Affleck, himself not exactly on a roll. The final nail in the coffin is the sprawling and confused adaptation of futuristic sci-fi maestro Philip K. Dick's short story. With the best of his work already up on screen (Blade Runner and Total Recall), it's now Dick's lesser works that are being plundered. Minority Report was entertaining, even if not wholly satisfying, but Paycheck is a dull mess in comparison that substitutes explosions for purpose and gadgets for story.
The complex plot involves Michael Jennings (Ben Affleck), who gets paid to have his memory erased only to discover that it's not only his memory that he's lost. A brilliant engineer who specializes in working backwards from a problem to find its solution, Jennings is offered $92 million to donate three years of his memory to the Allcom corporation, headed by his old school buddy James Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart). After the period is up, Jennings goes to collect his fee only to discover he'd apparently signed away his rights to the money in place of a bag of seemingly worthless items.
Using his skills as a reverse-engineer, Jennings tries to figure out what all the items mean and why he valued them more than the money. In his quest he is joined by the beautiful Rachel Porter (Uma Thurman) with whom he worked at Allcom. To complicate matters more, Jennings finds himself wanted by the FBI for fraud, apparently having signed his name to patents created by someone else.
Affleck does a more than convincing take on someone who is completely confused. It's when trying to convey any other emotions that he has difficulty. He lacks depth or lightness of touch, instead everything is too starched and forced and he and Thurman lack any kind of chemistry.
The story's high tech elements are realized with little imagination offering nothing that hasn't been seen more effectively elsewhere. Even the fight sequences and car chases that Woo has always excelled in seem uninspired. It's almost as if the film's title refers less to the plot and more to the motivation of those involved.
