PAYCHECK

Paycheck (Widescreen Edition) (2003)

Starring: Ben Affleck, Aaron Eckhart, et al.
Director: John Woo

Edition Details: Region 2 encoding (Europe, Japan, South Africa and the Middle East including Egypt)

DVD Features: Special Feature Information: Director Commentary, Screenwriter Commentary, Tempting Fate The Stunts Of Paycheck Featurette, Designing The Future Featurette, Deleted and Extended Scenes, Alternate Ending

Movie: * *
Disc: * *

Paycheck is the sort of bland action movie that’ll make for passable video fodder when the video you really wanted is out.

Despite a clever premise (based on a short story by Philip K. Dick) which involves an engineer who has his mind wiped after doing top secret jobs for multinational companies), the movie is so routine and formulaic that you don’t even have to hit the Pause button when you go and make some popcorn or fetch a beer from the freezer.

It didn’t have to be like this: the movie starts off promisingly with a good idea, but the script soon plays its hands and ruins any possible surprises it could have had early on. What follows is a long drawn out chase movie without any of the over-the-top action sequences (the last ultra-violent twenty minutes of Hard Boiled, the motorbike chase in Mission Impossible 2, etc.) that director John Woo is known for.

Affleck is so bland that he doesn’t even make an overpaid genius engineer who is also a kick ass kung fu stick fighter and a real lady’s man (just how likely is that?) a figure you’d hate.

Nope, this is a real McDonald’s burger of a movie: you’ll have an OK time wolfing it down, feel guilty afterwards about wasting your money on something so unhealthy and in no time you’d forget ever having one.

THE DISC: This Region 2 disc seems very similar to the Region 1 disc with the same featurettes, etc.

To be honest I didn’t even bother checking out the extra features out because, well, the movie is just so uninteresting that wouldn’t want to know anything more about it. (Uhm, okay, I did check out the deleted scenes, but including them wouldn’t have helped this lame cut price Total Recall/Minority Report hybrid.

WORTH IT? There are better stuff to be found on your local video shop’s shelves, I’m sure. Then again, you can also do a whole lot worse (Dragon Storm!).

RECOMMENDATION: Read a good Philip K. Dick book instead. I can recommend any of the following titles: Valis; The Divine Invasion; A Scanner Darkly; The Transmigration of Timothy Archer; Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?; Flow My Tears the Policeman Said; The Man in the High Castle and Martian Time Slip.