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Paycheck (Full Screen Edition)

Paycheck (Full Screen Edition)

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: About your average action movie
Review: Quite frankly, I liked the movie. However, my wife, son, and his girlfriend, thought it was only average so I rated it that way. Ben Affleck seems so stiff. Maybe it is because his is always in stiff roles? Lot of holes in the screenplay. If you enjoy action, though, you will like this movie.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: don't
Review: uma and ben dont have chemistry. michael (ben) has his brain deleted so he has to figure everything out. he had fancy computers, a total copy off of minority report is this supposed to be something new, exciting. it wasn't

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: PAYCHECK indeed....
Review: Maybe a huge PAYCHECK was what led robot actor Affleck and famous action director John Woo to accept to wrok in this mess of an action thriller that will lead you absolutely nowhere,; it will only make you wonder how can someone accept to shoot a screenplay so stupid and full of holes like this one.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: okay
Review: the whole dvd is decent but not great. Decent action, plot, and extras. better than i expected

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Relaxing fun, action-packed film
Review: This isn't a brainy film, in fact, you definitely have to check your brain at the door for the last 20 minutes of "Paycheck." That's because during all the shooting, as USUAL, the bad guys have exceptionally poor aim. And the good guys can dodge point-blank bullets. But OTHER than that complaint, Paycheck delivers non-stop action and loads of fun in this sci-fi thriller.

Ben Affleck is fine as the lead, a thoughtless engineer-for-hire who reverse-engineers any latest technology to get a jump on the competition. Only, he has to have his memories erased so he won't go and reverse-engineer the device for someone else. Or anyway, that's the plot, so go with it. Uma Thurman plays a biologist who gets involved with Affleck and ends up being his sidekick, though Affleck has had her memory erased and hasn't a clue who she really is. Fun twist on a romance.

The extras are interesting; an alternate ending (yeah, it was weaker, good they changed it) and a segment about John Woo's technique, excellent for understanding this director's outlook on cinema. This is a fun, "entertain-me" film and if there are a few plot holes, you can overlook them.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: this movie is a hundred times better than you got served.
Review: this movie is a hundred times better than you got served.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: paycheck rocks
Review: yes paycheck really does rock. and is way better than you got served.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great cat and mouse movie
Review: This is a good action movie with big names like Ben affleck and Uma thurman. Its a cat and mouse movie because Mike played by Ben Affleck gets chased around alot through pretty much the whole movie. There is some gunplay but mostly hand to hand combat.This is a memory lose movie such as (bourne identity) where Mike a highly intelligent engineer gets paid big bucks to do top secret jobs and then after he is done they erase his memory up to a certain point where it is ok that he knows. There is romance in this movie between ben affleck and Uma Thurman.Uma plays a brilliant scientist who falls for mike while he is in his missions and usually after its over he doesnt remember him. Mike got offered an 8-digit paycheck to do a 3year top secret program and then after words lose the memory of the past three years. Well he wakes up from the memory lose project with all his stock money (92,000,000 dollars) gone .The FBI and thugs from the business where he did the project chasing him and trying to kill him and all he has is 20 objects in an envelope that arent even his. He has to use these 20 things to figure out his past and not killed by the henchman chasing him.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Another great Philip K. Dick idea thrown away by Hollywood
Review: Having John Woo direct "Paycheck" was a big mistake because forcing this film, based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, into a "Mission: Impossible" type movie was the wrong move to make. But after "Bladerunner" and "Minority Report" Hollywood apparently cannot conceive of doing one of Dick's imaginative science fiction stories as anything other than an action film. Of course, look at the travesty they have planned for Issac Asimov's "I Robot" with its killer robots violating the First Law and I guess we should not be surprised.

There is a major surprise in this film set up by the trailer, which introduces Michael Jennings (Ben Affleck), a brilliant scientist of some sort who does ultra secret jobs, gets his mind blanked for the period he worked, and then picks up a paycheck. However, after his biggest job instead of a multi-million dollar paycheck he discovers that he has sent himself an envelope with 20 objects that he has never seen before (okay, he has seen them, he just does not remember any of them). The inference in the trailer is that these are clues as to what he did and why he would give up the biggest paycheck of all. It has to be something pretty big and pretty bad to give up all that money. Chase scenes and fights are tangential to that and not all that impressive (the point of a motorcycle is not speed but manuverability, but apparently Jennings is not smart enough to know that and take advantage of it).

But to get back to the crux of the problem with this 2003 film, those items are not clues but something more interesting that should have been the driving force of this story. On the off chance that has not been given away already by what you have seen and heard about "Paycheck" I will refrain from saying more, because when I picked up on what was really happening was when I really got interested in this film. But Woo focuses on the physical rather than the cerebral and this film jumps off the tracks. You know things are just plain wrong when the best moves in an action film are done by a robotic machine.

Ultimately, "Paycheck" reminds me of the few computer games I have played in the past such as "Phantasmagoria" and "Gabriel Knight," and I was excited by that idea. This film needed to be more like "Memento," where the emphasis is on being clever instead of dumbing everything down to action sequences that are decidedly unimpressive. There are some great ideas at the heart of this movie but they were quickly forgotten and buried beneath substandard Hollywood schlock. Besides, after the "Kill Bill" films it is hard to see Uma Thurman playing a relatively ordinary woman. But the main thing here is that once again Hollywood has taken a pretty good idea and thrown it away.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: "What you erase doesn't matter"
Review: This movie clearly reflects the characteristics of its director John Woo. I would define it as "Mission Impossible" meets James Bond, and as happens in these productions, the creator of "Paycheck" goes overboard in a couple of scenes making them extremely unbelievable. Nevertheless, it is an entertaining film, which ended up being more fulfilling than I had expected, since the plot is considerably better than other action-packed films out there.

Michael Jennings (Ben Affleck) is specialized in reverse engineering and his job consists in working non-stop for several weeks in each project he faces. Upon completion, he gets his money and his memory of that time interval is erased. The longest Michael has worked on a project is two months, but now his boss entices him to work on a three-year project. The bait is an eight-figure remuneration. Of course Michael has doubts, but the offer is too tempting for him to pass. By the time he finishes the project, he gets his one big paycheck in exchange for three years of his life: close to one hundred million dollars.

Michael gets a huge surprise though, when he finds out from his attorney that he has forfeited the portfolio and that the only possessions to recover are a set of items in an envelope at the attorney's office. Michael sent these items to himself, and they all look worthless; the list includes a can of hair spray, a pair of glasses, a book of matches, a bullet, a lighter, a watch and several other little an seemingly unimportant personal effects. When the FBI comes after him, Michael realizes that there is something wrong and that the items he sent to himself are meant to help him solve the mystery and keep him alive.

Even though I am not a big fan of Ben Affleck, I think he does a good job in this movie and that he fits his role very well. I am a fan of Uma Thurman though, who in the film plays the part of Dr. Porter, a lady that captivated Michael since he met her and who also works for Michael's boss. As usual, Thurman's performance is convincing and shows the passion she puts in her work. This is a good movie for spending a couple of hours entertained, but it is not one I would enjoy seeing repeatedly.


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