Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Paycheck

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Posted by Richard Greco (Member # 2032) on 12-28-2003, 02:14 AM:

12-27-2003/Fun-Lan Drive In/Screen 1/FM Sound from your vehicle
11:35pm showing

This definately redeems Ben Affleck from his horrendous showing in Gigli.

I thought the acting was very well thought out and the script was fun and action packed. It was interesting to see him piece all the puzzle parts together and find out what they end up to be in the end.

Uma Thurman acted well, no where near her Kill Bill style but good in the end.

The story kept me on my toes as I wanted to figure out how he was going to get his paycheck. I do hope that this isn't set in Present Day because most of the technology presented isn't possible yet.

I did find the ending to be a little cliched. But overall I enjoyed it.

4/5 stars

Posted by William Leland III (Member # 1400) on 12-28-2003, 02:36 PM:

Richard, glad you liked it. it's been getting raped by the movie critics. i haven't seen it but hope to. if u liked the movie you need to read the short story, very good.

quote:
the ending to be a little cliched

the ending in the book is great, you get your money's worth (pun intended).

Posted by Pravin Ratnam (Member # 1417) on 01-03-2004, 03:46 PM:

I hate to disagree. I did find the movie watchable and on rare occasion ,even entertaining, but that means nothing because I can watch crap in this genre and still find something entertaining and this movie is crap. Hell, I even sort of enjoyed the 6th Sign with Arnie.

I don't even know where to start. Uma Thurman follows up the best acting of her career(Kill BIll, Hysterical Blindness) with her worst acting ever. My god, the lady could not even hug people and not look an amateur. She was so awkward and uncomfortable in many scenes including simple scenes like just standing near a door and gazing at Affleck. And to top it off, the makeup and cinematographer did her no favors in this movie. Her face in this movie looked, at times, worse than her feet in Kill BIll. Maybe I should give Quentin Tarantino and Robert Richardson even more credit to making Uma appear so fabulous in Kill Bill. Give them the oscar nods, and not to Uma. Hell, when you think of it, even the annoying Lucy Lui looked good in that movie. And note to scriptwriter: Uma's character seemed to have been a botanist, not a biologist.

Affleck was better and wavered between competent and bad(whenever he had to act with Uma). He and Uma had no chemistry.

And let's put most of the blame on JOHN WOO. OK, excuse the language, but THERE WAS A FUCKING DOVE FLYING at one of the most awkward points in the movie. And to think, my friends and I were joking before I saw this whether Woo would use another dove in his movies. I thought Woo got over this after he didnt use one in Windtalkers. That scene was like self parody. After that scene, I have no more respect for John Woo. He has almost sunk to Joel Shumaker level.

Woo not only failed to get good perfomances from his leads, but also could not even manage to make this movie look visually good. At least Mission Impossible 2 was gorgeous to look at with some great stunts. This movie had a couple of OK stunts. This movie had the look of a late night HBO noir movie. Bad camera angles seemed amateurish at times.

Paul Giamatti was the only truly fun character and they give him nothing to do in the second half. As far as the story, I hope the plot was not exactly the same in the short story, because this was one weak ass plot compared to other Phillip Dick movie adaptations. There was not single relevation in the second half. Eckardt sheds no real additional light on what we already know about his intentions and why he is doing it.

Posted by Richard Greco (Member # 2032) on 01-04-2004, 10:36 PM:

Now that I think abot it, I change my rating to a 2/5 stars.

This film was fun and action filled but wasn't THAT great.

I realize now that it could have been better. Maybe it was the fact that I got home at 1:30 am from watching it...I don't know.

Posted by Eric Hooper (Member # 1730) on 01-09-2004, 05:35 PM:

This was so far-fetched I laughed my ass off walking out of the theatre. This was one of the most rediculous movies I have ever seen.... And that CRAP CODE during the chase scene!!! OMFG. I'm just going to stop going to the movies and wait for DVD from now on...I'm fed up with all these antics! Hollywood is killing itself.

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 01-21-2004, 06:39 PM:

Odeon Leeds/Bradford
Wed 21 Jan 18:15
Screen 9 - Scope, Dolby Digital

The first half is much better than the second. The first half has story, the second half has the action. The story is all good, just a shame it didn't last for the whole of the film.

Uma Thurman under-used in the first half and then Paul Giamatti under-used in the second half.

In all -one of Ben Affleck’s better movies. He plays a role that's suited to him as an actor.