43
Metascore
34 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 70The Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttThe Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttA nifty science-fiction twist on the old amnesia plot where a guy spends most of a movie trying to remember what he did and why everyone is after him.
- 60Village VoiceMark HolcombVillage VoiceMark HolcombWoo's film is in some ways closer to Dick's -- and his own -- pulp roots, and if he lazily quotes himself (and, inexplicably, Aldrich's "Kiss Me Deadly") once too often, he at least gets loose, spirited performances from his cast -- Uma's post-"Kill Bill" gravitas notwithstanding.
- 58Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumEntertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumThe amazing thing about John Woo's steely, impersonal adaptation of Philip K. Dick sci-fi story about a tech genius whose memory is erased...is how it vanishes in front of our eyes even as we watch it.
- 50Chicago TribuneMichael WilmingtonChicago TribuneMichael WilmingtonUnfortunately, after watching Paycheck, you may wish you had the picture's gimmickry at your disposal, so you could erase your own memory of it.
- 50New York PostJonathan ForemanNew York PostJonathan ForemanWoo has never been particularly good at human stuff, and to the extent that Paycheck is, or should be, a love story, it feels forced.
- 40VarietyRobert KoehlerVarietyRobert KoehlerUninspired star turns from Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman suggest something less than full belief in this quickly forgettable thriller.
- 40Los Angeles TimesManohla DargisLos Angeles TimesManohla DargisThe sort of noisy nonsense that Woo's earlier action movies made irrelevant, but alas not extinct.
- 38ReelViewsJames BerardinelliReelViewsJames BerardinelliWith a script that waffles between being hilariously absurd and insultingly stupid, and action scenes that won't cause anyone's pulse to skip a beat, Paycheck is less appealing than a lump of coal in a Christmas stocking.
- 38New York Daily NewsJack MathewsNew York Daily NewsJack MathewsThe story, adapted by Dean Georgaris, doesn't come within a light year of science-fiction plausibility, and after a while Woo gives up trying to sell it and reverts to the action choreography that made him a master of Hong Kong martial-arts movies.
- 30Dallas ObserverRobert WilonskyDallas ObserverRobert WilonskyPaycheck is a terribly muddled mess, a Hitchcock homage (with generous, obvious nods to The Birds, Strangers on a Train and North by Northwest) by a great filmmaker trying to say a great deal with so very little.