Review of Paycheck (2003) by Josh G — 28 Jul 2009

John Woo's Face Off and Broken Arrow were brilliant movies. Paycheck however was far off the achievement of the previous two films. First of all, to be honest the story was interesting at first. (Spoiler) However, after a while, it was becoming unbelievable that each item was "correctly" used.

Yeah, some items were obviously meant to be use for their intended purposes, but some other items could be used wrongly at the wrong time... yeah that's my second problem with the film... impeccable timing! Yes the machine predicted perhaps all his movement but you see, the machine could not have predicted all the "possible" choices that he took in the course of his escape, which would lead to countless alternate outcome of events.

Even Next (2007) makes more sense that this one (multiple outcome base on choices taken). Lastly, Uma Thurman and Ben Affleck were both horrible in the lead roles. The scenes at the beginning where Ben Affleck romances Uma Thurman, I cringe at all their conversations.

Painful to watch, no spark at all, even their glances looked like they were disinterested. This film could have done great it the script were able to highlight the peril of predicting the future, or even the conspiracy of a large corporation controlling the politics, war even, or the personal choices and moral struggles to safe oneself etc.

I gave it a 2/5 for lack of effort in making it great.