John Woo What have You Done | Paycheck (Special Collector's Edition)

Lots of action + Good car chasing motorbike scene = Fun to rent | Paycheck (Special Collector's Edition) | Ben Affleck, Aaron Eckhart

DVDs:


	• Paycheck (Special Collector's Edition) Ben Affleck, Aaron Eckhart Paramount, 2004 average customer review:based on 163 reviews view larger image
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Solid sci-fi actioner from John Woo

Sci-fi actioner directed by John Woo in which square-jawed Ben Affleck pays Michael Jennings, a gifted computer engineer who takes on secretive computer projects for corporations for large sums of cash with one catch: the corporations insist that after completing each assignment he must have his short-term memory wiped so that he remembers nothing of the work that he has done. Each assignment thus far has been short-term, lasting no more than eight weeks, so each time Jennings has had his memory wiped after completing an assignment he has lost no more than eight weeks of his life. But this time he has been offered an assignment by a company called Allcom for which he will be paid $92 million on its completion, enough to set him up for life. The problem? It is a long-term assignment, lasting three years, which means that he will have to lose three years worth of memories upon completion of the assignment. Jennings weighs up this cost but the money is just too much of an incentive and he agrees to do the assignment. However after completing the mystery assignment and having his last three years of memory wiped Jennings finds out that four weeks before his memory was wiped he sold his stock options in Allcom - meaning that he will not get any of the $92 million he was promised - and on top of that he is a wanted man: his former bosses at Allcom want him dead. But Jennings does not know why, as he has no memory of the past three years. With his life in the balance and with an envelope of clues and useful items that he left for himself four weeks before his memory was wiped Jennings manages to locate some allies: his friend Shorty (played by Paul Giamatti) and love interest and employee of Allcom Dr Rachel (played by Uma Thurman), and with their help sets out to uncover just what he was doing over the last three years - including why he gave up the $92 million - all the while trying to avoid assassination by hit men working for his former bosses at Allcom. What he discovers is that during his three missing years he built a machine that could very well mean the end of the world, a machine that must be destroyed at any cost. I found this to be a good sci-fi film from John Woo, with a strong plot and predictably good action and fight sequences. John Woo certainly knows how to put together a good movie, and the clues that Jennings has to decipher throughout the movie are very enjoyable, although I felt there could have been more of the theoretical physics behind the machine that Jennings builds addressed in the film. My only other complaint is that the climax to the movie does not quite have enough impact (although it almost does). Nonetheless this is a very good movie, so I give it 4 stars.

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John Woo What have You Done

Ben Affleck sure had a bad year in 2003, all of his worst movies came out that year. To name a few Gigli, Daredevil, and of course this one. Don't get me wrong this movie isn't horrible it's just that it tries so hard at being clever that in the end it fells quite silly. the movie begins with a reverse engineer named Michael Jennings (played by Ben Affleck) who gets paid hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars by big industries to take new existing technology and make it better, after he is finished with his work he is required by contract to submit himself to memory erasure, the memory they erase is only the work that he has done for his clients.

Afterwards we are introduced to James Rethrick (played by Aaron Eckhart) who proposes Michael a deal of a lifetime, he must give up three years of his life in order to create something that doesn't exist, as a matter of fact he doesn't even know if it can be done: but in the end if he is successful he will be paid a substantial amount of money. anyway so far the premise of the movie is good.... so what went wrong... well after that three year gap we find Michael receiving the payment for his work... but as soon as he checks his account all the money has being dropped and instead been exchanged for nick knacks. Anyhow i don't want to ruin more it's an okay movie to watch once. The main problem with this movie is the tone, there are things that just don't fit and makes you scratch your head and go "HUH"? For instance Uma Thurman plays a botanist that somehow knows how to fight in hand-to-hand combat (must have learned in Kill Bill) also there are some plot holes that are kind of hard to ignore, as well there are random action scenes that look better for a matrix movie. Without ruining more it's an ok movie to watch once.

MY PERSONAL RATING: 2 ½ OUT OF 5

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Lots of action + Good car chasing motorbike scene = Fun to rent

This movie contains a lot of action. The scene where a car chasing the motorbike scene are very exciting. The plot has logical gaps as big as a truck but it's still fun to watch.

This is the kind of movie I'll watch once.

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Reverse engineered for your enjoyment.

This is a fun concept movie that, yes, could have been more profound. But as it is, it's fun to see how they work the various items into Jennings' master plan in unpredictable ways. I've read the story by Philip K. Dick, and there are points of the story where it has been changed, and the machine works differently here, but the core concept is kept intact. And the question remains: Even if you could see the future, do you really think you'd be able to change it for the better?

Affleck doesn't really amaze anyone here, but he also doesn't detract from the story. Uma is fine and Eckhart is delightfully over-the-top towards the end. This is a man who has received a glimpse of the power he could have if he simply got rid of the obstacles, and he is determined to achieve that power. Even if one of the obstacles is his good friend Jennings.

There are some scientific improbabilities here along with some basic errors, but the driving force here is the philosophical concept, not the
scientific possibilities. And the pacing is generally fast enough that you can just relax and watch the action sequences if that's all you care about.

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The brainy, paranoid science fiction of writer Philip K. Dick has inspired one visionary classic (Blade Runner) and two above-average action movies (Total Recall and Minority Report). Paycheck aspires to follow in their footsteps: An engineer (Ben Affleck, Chasing Amy) routinely agrees to have his memory erased after every job so that he doesn't know what he's done. But after the biggest job of his life, he discovers that not only has he refused a $90 million paycheck, he's sent himself an envelope full of things he doesn't recognize--and he doesn't remember doing any of this. As he unravels the plot, he discovers he's also fallen in love (with Uma Thurman, Kill Bill) and invented a dangerous device for his former boss (Aaron Eckhart, Erin Brockovich). Affleck is bland, the script ruins a cunning idea, and the direction--from the normally dynamic John Woo (Face/Off)--plods along, aimless and bored. --Bret Fetzer

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