| 80 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
John Woo's smart thriller Paycheck may not intend to be political, but it's marked as much by its era as post-Watergate thrillers like "The Parallax View" or "Three Days Of The Condor."
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| 70 |
The Hollywood Reporter
A 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.
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| 70 |
Film Threat
Chris Barsanti
Quite honestly, if this had been a more violent film, it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun.
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| 67 |
Portland Oregonian
Affleck is in the middle, engaging in derring-do, pitching woo to Uma Thurman and making the whole thing come off as less exciting than it should have been.
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| 63 |
Boston Globe
We're left with the painful reality that Paycheck might get Alfred Hitchcock, but it certainly doesn't know Philip K. Dick.
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| 63 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Slick and slight.
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| 63 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
There are chases that feel way too long, and dialogue that feels flat. Affleck and Thurman make a handsome duo, but there's no spark between the actors.
|
| 60 |
Empire
in the end, Paycheck never quite cashes out.
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| 60 |
Village Voice
Woo'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.
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| 58 |
Entertainment Weekly
The 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.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Tribune
Unfortunately, after watching Paycheck, you may wish you had the picture's gimmickry at your disposal, so you could erase your own memory of it.
|
| 50 |
New York Post
Woo has never been particularly good at human stuff, and to the extent that Paycheck is, or should be, a love story, it feels forced.
|
| 50 |
The New York Times
Surprisingly . . . ept given that it is basically a dumb movie about smart people. This smooth but bland thriller may be the best we could expect from such a collaboration.
|
| 50 |
LA Weekly
Paycheck is too smart for a mindless actioneer, and too slick to capture the full moral weight of Dick's dystopia.
|
| 50 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Running mainly on adrenaline and a gimmick, it's different from other holiday movies in that it's not ambitious, earnest or overblown, and it obviously wasn't made with one eye on the Oscars.
|
| 50 |
USA Today
Maybe Affleck was drawn to this movie because it involves the loss of memory. Who wouldn't want to forget "Gigli," and now this?
|
| 50 |
Chicago Reader
The silliness only slows down for a few hokey romantic interludes. But if you like to see stuff crash or blow up, this is your movie.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Sun-Times
Begins with a thought-provoking idea from Philip K. Dick, exploits it for its action and plot potential, but never really develops it.
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| 50 |
Film Threat
Longtime fans of John Woo, who have come to accept operatic, lead-slinging death dances as an integral part of the director’s powerful aesthetic, will probably be unsatisfied with this neutered variation on his earlier, superior works.
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| 50 |
Washington Post
A fun if dumb movie.
|
| 50 |
Christian Science Monitor
Woo's customary action-film pyrotechnics gather more substance than usual from the implausible but inventive plot, drawn from a Philip K. Dick story.
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| 50 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The bogus Seattle setting creates an additional problem for local moviegoers. Because we know Seattle doesn't have a subway, giant FBI building or newspapers called Telegraph or Tribune, we're jarred out of the story so regularly that it leaves us slightly punch-drunk.
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| 50 |
Baltimore Sun
Paycheck is one of those movies in which all the ingenuity went into the original idea and none into its execution.
|
| 40 |
TV Guide
Affleck is no more convincing as a flesh-and-blood action than as a superbrain, Thurman is cruelly photographed and director Woo appears to be imitating his own worst work.
|
| 40 |
Los Angeles Times
The sort of noisy nonsense that Woo's earlier action movies made irrelevant, but alas not extinct.
|
| 40 |
Variety
Uninspired star turns from Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman suggest something less than full belief in this quickly forgettable thriller.
|
| 38 |
ReelViews
With 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.
|
| 38 |
New York Daily News
The 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.
|
| 38 |
Charlotte Observer
Isn't a bad movie, until John Woo remembers that he's John Woo and we remember that Ben Affleck is Ben Affleck.
|
| 38 |
Premiere
Paycheck is a bogus journey.
|
| 30 |
Dallas Observer
Paycheck 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.
|
| 25 |
Rolling Stone
The title of this limp retread of "Minority Report" -- both films are based on stories by Philip K. Dick -- presumably refers to the reason the big names involved did this movie.
|
| 20 |
Austin Chronicle
Maybe it’s time for Woo to finally make that musical he keeps talking about.
|
| 20 |
Washington Post
Represents such a professional nadir for each of its principals that you wish better for them in the new year.
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