Paycheck

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

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."

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

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.

Film Threat Chris Barsanti

Quite honestly, if this had been a more violent film, it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

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.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

We're left with the painful reality that Paycheck might get Alfred Hitchcock, but it certainly doesn't know Philip K. Dick.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Slick and slight.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

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.

Empire Adam Smith

in the end, Paycheck never quite cashes out.

Village Voice Mark Holcomb

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.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

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.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

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.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

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.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

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.

LA Weekly Jon Strickland

Paycheck is too smart for a mindless actioneer, and too slick to capture the full moral weight of Dick's dystopia.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

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.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Maybe Affleck was drawn to this movie because it involves the loss of memory. Who wouldn't want to forget "Gigli," and now this?

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

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.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Begins with a thought-provoking idea from Philip K. Dick, exploits it for its action and plot potential, but never really develops it.

Film Threat K.J. Doughton

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.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

A fun if dumb movie.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Woo's customary action-film pyrotechnics gather more substance than usual from the implausible but inventive plot, drawn from a Philip K. Dick story.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

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.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Paycheck is one of those movies in which all the ingenuity went into the original idea and none into its execution.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

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.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

The sort of noisy nonsense that Woo's earlier action movies made irrelevant, but alas not extinct.

Variety Robert Koehler

Uninspired star turns from Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman suggest something less than full belief in this quickly forgettable thriller.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

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.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

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.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Isn't a bad movie, until John Woo remembers that he's John Woo and we remember that Ben Affleck is Ben Affleck.

Premiere Aaron Hillis

Paycheck is a bogus journey.

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

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.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

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.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Maybe it’s time for Woo to finally make that musical he keeps talking about.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Represents such a professional nadir for each of its principals that you wish better for them in the new year.