This film is as under-rated as "Minority Report" is over-rated. Both are passable Dick adaptations, but without the flair of the master for mental paradox.
People seem to love to hate Ben Affleck, and this may be part of the reason this film has been dinged so much. Like "Minority Report," it suffers from gaping plot holes that come with not-so-carefully crafted premonition/time travel stories. Not Dick's fault: the directors (Woo and Spielberg) should not have toyed with the stories 'to enhance drama.'
Here the problem is as follows: Affleck has taken on a top secret job, with the understanding his memory will be wiped afterward. The job is to create a machine that can inspect the future, and it tells him his boss is going to kill him. So he watches himself and every time he gets caught, figures out an item that will get him out of the pinch. He then sends himself the items in an envelope in lieu of his paycheck, to get his attention after the memory wipe, and from there on his cat-and-mouse game with his boss ensues. The problem here is chaotic dynamics: every time he figures his next escape and adds another item, that item will newly show up in the envelope, changing in ever less subtle ways what actually happens, so the situation for the item will never arise.
If you forgive the film that basic flaw, it's jolly good action and fun. Uma Thurman does not interfere too much and the two never get gooey-schmooey, which really does not work in a B-action movie anyway. I loved that bathroom mirror message thing.
It is very rare that time travel or premonition movies get pulled off right. The only recent example is the Spierig brother's "Predestination," and only because they stuck exactly with Heinlein's story. Go see "Paycheck" when you feel like a harmless evening with a brew and some friends, and "Predestination" if you want to see a film where you really have to think through the plot carefully to realize that every time you think something's wrong, you were not thinking clearly enough.
I rate this the same as "Minority Report" because it has no more flaws to its logic, yet lacks the pretense of Spielberg's opus at something higher.
People seem to love to hate Ben Affleck, and this may be part of the reason this film has been dinged so much. Like "Minority Report," it suffers from gaping plot holes that come with not-so-carefully crafted premonition/time travel stories. Not Dick's fault: the directors (Woo and Spielberg) should not have toyed with the stories 'to enhance drama.'
Here the problem is as follows: Affleck has taken on a top secret job, with the understanding his memory will be wiped afterward. The job is to create a machine that can inspect the future, and it tells him his boss is going to kill him. So he watches himself and every time he gets caught, figures out an item that will get him out of the pinch. He then sends himself the items in an envelope in lieu of his paycheck, to get his attention after the memory wipe, and from there on his cat-and-mouse game with his boss ensues. The problem here is chaotic dynamics: every time he figures his next escape and adds another item, that item will newly show up in the envelope, changing in ever less subtle ways what actually happens, so the situation for the item will never arise.
If you forgive the film that basic flaw, it's jolly good action and fun. Uma Thurman does not interfere too much and the two never get gooey-schmooey, which really does not work in a B-action movie anyway. I loved that bathroom mirror message thing.
It is very rare that time travel or premonition movies get pulled off right. The only recent example is the Spierig brother's "Predestination," and only because they stuck exactly with Heinlein's story. Go see "Paycheck" when you feel like a harmless evening with a brew and some friends, and "Predestination" if you want to see a film where you really have to think through the plot carefully to realize that every time you think something's wrong, you were not thinking clearly enough.
I rate this the same as "Minority Report" because it has no more flaws to its logic, yet lacks the pretense of Spielberg's opus at something higher.