"Remember the future."

Paycheck (2003): 7/10

Poster (c) Paramount Pictures

John Woo sure does like glass breaking. In any one of the numerous action scenes in his newest movie, Paycheck, you can assure that glass will break at least once in each. If you think about it a little, it’s a pretty cheap thing to do for some thrills. A sudden, jolting noise and easy special effects is all that is done. So, with all of the glass breaking going on in Paycheck, you would expect it to be one of those stupid, lame thrillers, when it is anything but. Based on a short story by Philip K. Dick (as it seems most sci-fi movies are now), it seems to be stuck in time, because some things are very futuristic, and some seem to be very basic and even old for 2003 (Minority Report had the same problem).

Ben Affleck (who I think gets ridiculed too much for his acting; he’s not good, but he’s not horrible) plays Michael Jennings, a “reverse engineer”, a person who creates various electronic programs for a company by stealing it from another and then his memory is erased so no secrets can be revealed. After a big three year job, his memory is erased but instead of getting an eight figure paycheck, he gets twenty items he sent himself to help get the money. With help from his girlfriend from the three years he can’t remember (Uma Thurman), he tries to figure out what has happened.

If you can get past the obvious product placements (such as a BMW dealership and a pack of Altoids), many of Paycheck’s action scenes are just plain clichéd fun. There’s no real reason for them, but I found the motorcycle chase scene here better than the one in The Matrix Reloaded simply because it’s nothing new. Of course, with all chase scenes, it’s obvious that the bad guys will be stupid and the good guys will be smart. For example, Jennings drives a motorcycle through a small barrel that’s been made into a tunnel. Then a car tries driving through it. It actually made me laugh how stupid and clichéd these people were.

Much like Minority Report, the futuristic aspect came and went (as I said earlier), but some of the graphics used were very cool. One problem I had with it, though, was that I couldn’t tell what time period it took place in. Was it a few years in the future? Or now? I just couldn’t tell, which really bothered me. In addition to that, could someone who just had a large part of their memory erased and who had never ridden a motorcycle before actually be able to drive one perfectly?

Affleck does what he can, and since he isn’t a terribly strong actor, he doesn’t do much. Thurman does her usual, too, and she’s a pretty good actress in general. While I remember, did anyone else notice that her “replacement” in the restaurant scene was named Mya, while Thurman’s name in Pulp Fiction was Mia? I also appreciated the whole “seeing the future” aspect. I love time travel movies, and this added another little twist onto it. It kind of reminded me of the end part of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, where they say that they will do things afterwards and time travel back so it will be there, but I digress. It was something new, and that’s what was so good about Paycheck, in my opinion. It has a lot of clichés to it, but just tacks on something new and something to make the same old thing enjoyable.

Rated PG-13 for intense action violence and brief language.

Review Date: December 26, 2003