The One and Only Paycheck Thread

[Guest Skironox]

Last night I saw an advance screening of Paycheck with Ben Affleck. To my surprise the movie was actually pretty enjoyable, not spectactular, but around the 3 stars area. Can't go too much into detail without spoilers, so...

 

Spoiler (Highlight to Read):

The movie takes place around 15-20 years into the future. Ben Affleck is a contractor who rips off existing technology and has his memory wiped afterwards so he doesn't remember confidential information. He takes a 3 year job for a corporation with a promised 90 million dollar payoff in the end. During this time he has a relationship with Uma Thurman. When he comes to after the job, he doesn't remember a thing about it, but his 90 million dollars are missing and he only has a manilla envelope full of everyday crap.   The way the movie is advertised would make you think it's like Memento, a desperate search for the past, but the twist is that during the three years he developed for this corporation, he invented a technology that sees into the future. This technology is what eventually leads to the apocalypse. He also used this technology to predict his death, and he decides he must change the future. He left behind these 20 objects to ensure he suceeds in his mission and lives, these objects range from a paper clip, to a stopwatch, to a jar of ball bearings. These are ordinary objects he could use that wouldn't arouse suspicion in the corporation but will have a function when the time arises. Ben isn't a super duper action hero in this movie, while he is a step below Kilik in the use of a rod, he can't fire a gun for crap and panicks under fire. What he does have in this movie is the Guybrush Threepwood-Roger Wilco ability to save the world with ordinary objects. Being a fan of old school adventure games that revolved around that premise, I marked out big time for that.   My main gripe about this is that once you learn he used these objects to protect himself, you pretty much know the outcome of the story. A little twist that surprised me is how he used the prediction of the future to win the lotto and get his 90 million back.

 

I could have done with a few less action scenes and more of the thinking mans mystery elements, but with John Woo at the helm, I knew there would be a fair share of that. But it's not a double Uzi slow motion kind of movie. But it's nice to know Gigli hasn't killed Affleck quite yet.