What seemed like a breezy idea for a reverse engineer (Ben Affleck) to net him millions of dollars, leaves him on the run for his life and piecing together why he is being chased.
The source material for this film comes from a Philip K. Dick story ("Paycheck") that amounts to little more than thirty pages. The general premise is the same (the erased memory and the knick knacks) but much has been added to flesh things out, the objects have been changed and the world portrayed is more like ours (with the FBI) than the business versus government one portrayed in the story.
While it might be hard to believe someone would trade $92 million dollars for useless junk, that is part of what makes the film compelling -- the burden is on director John Woo to convince us that Jennings made the right choice. And, being Woo, we will get plenty of action along the way -- chases, firefights, etc. With more than just a little inspiration from "North by Northwest" to add some class...
The film also, successfully, keeps the mystery in place of what Jennings was working on. Those who read the story will have a good idea, but keep in mind the screenplay changed the objects -- it could change the invention, too. Mystery, suspense, action... and a very impressive score from John Powell (a Hans Zimmer protégé)... this is a good one.
Reviews seem heavily mixed, with AV Club and Film Threat praising it, others criticizing the allegedly poor acting (this helped earn Affleck a Razzie, though that was mostly due to "Gigli"). Roger Ebert said the film "begins with a thought-provoking idea from Philip K. Dick, exploits it for its action and plot potential, but never really develops it." That may be fair, but also, there was only so much to work with. All in all, a solid film.
The source material for this film comes from a Philip K. Dick story ("Paycheck") that amounts to little more than thirty pages. The general premise is the same (the erased memory and the knick knacks) but much has been added to flesh things out, the objects have been changed and the world portrayed is more like ours (with the FBI) than the business versus government one portrayed in the story.
While it might be hard to believe someone would trade $92 million dollars for useless junk, that is part of what makes the film compelling -- the burden is on director John Woo to convince us that Jennings made the right choice. And, being Woo, we will get plenty of action along the way -- chases, firefights, etc. With more than just a little inspiration from "North by Northwest" to add some class...
The film also, successfully, keeps the mystery in place of what Jennings was working on. Those who read the story will have a good idea, but keep in mind the screenplay changed the objects -- it could change the invention, too. Mystery, suspense, action... and a very impressive score from John Powell (a Hans Zimmer protégé)... this is a good one.
Reviews seem heavily mixed, with AV Club and Film Threat praising it, others criticizing the allegedly poor acting (this helped earn Affleck a Razzie, though that was mostly due to "Gigli"). Roger Ebert said the film "begins with a thought-provoking idea from Philip K. Dick, exploits it for its action and plot potential, but never really develops it." That may be fair, but also, there was only so much to work with. All in all, a solid film.