Paycheck Movie

John Woo directs the sci-fi action thriller Paycheck, based on a story written by Philip K. Dick in 1953. Waking up with his short-term memory erased, engineer Michael Jennings (Ben Affleck) learns that he has been doing highly secretive work for the last three years in exchange for billions of dollars. But when he tries to get paid, he finds out that he himself had previously exchanged the money for an envelope of random clues to his life. Chased by an FBI agent (Michael C. Hall) and his old boss Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart), Michael uses the clues to find out his identity and prove his innocence. Uma Thurman appears as his love interest and partner, Rachel.

As calculated as it is perfunctory, this John Woo sci-fi thriller submits a decent cast to the indignities of silly pseudo-science, snoozy action sequences and a smarmy, tacked-on epilogue. The high-concept premise comes straight from the Phillip K. Dick source material, but it's been transformed into something so slick and overly clever that the entire story crumbles under the weight of its pretensions. That'd be fine if the filmmakers seemed to care about filling their frame with gorgeously choreographed fights and glib banter -- those satisfying staples of the action blockbuster. But once the fun opening sequence has run its course, director Woo can't seem to work up much enthusiasm for the material; he shows signs of life only during the climax, with its overabundance of catwalk chases and hydraulic lifts. As for hired-gun screenwriter Dean Georgaris, he seems more adept with clever throwaway details than with the careful world-building that allows an audience to suspend disbelief. Even the actors seem to have trouble convincing us they mean it as they spout their cornball cloak-and-dagger dialogue. Ben Affleck clenches his jaw through an amnesiac role that's a pale echo of the one Guy Pearce played in Memento. Uma Thurman is reduced from the grandeur of Kill Bill Vol. 1 to the pale tremulousness of a standard-issue girlfriend role. As a white-collar villain, Aaron Eckhart is given free reign to chew scenery and smirk like it's going out of style. That leaves only American Splendor's Paul Giamatti and Six Feet Under's Michael C. Hall -- both supporting players -- to provide a few glimpses of actual humanity in a flick so cynical that its humanitarian "message" provokes only guffaws.